(the project is currently ongoing)
Under Black Carpets is an investigation into the "use and misuse of the cityscape where by architecture is considered both the obstacle and the tool to bridge or separate you from what you're looking for" (Geoff Manaugh, Breaking In and Breaking Out) in both legal and illegal agendas.
"Stories are told… Stories are extracted. Stories are constructed in those operations which impose order and reason, of hygiene, empowerment and disempowerment - some believed, some discarded. There are miscarriages of justice, and can we ever know the mind of the criminal? Entropic fragments, traces, terminal associations, aftermath, degradation, the sedimentation of everyday life, haunting absences - this is also, we propose, an archaeological sensibility." - Archaeologist Michael Shanks, in Michael Shanks & Mike Pearson's Theatre/Archaeology (2001)
What if the object is not a "witness" but an entity constructed for the express purpose of creating, or activating, a legal, conclusive discussion? An object might be used to map the diffused networks of informal or illegal labor, or be called upon to narrate historical events in the absence of evidentiary materials.
Today's legal and political decisions are often based upon the capacity to display and read DNA samples, 3D laser scans, nanotechnology, and the enhanced vision of electromagnetic microscopes and satellite surveillance. From retinal scans, biological remains, landscape topographies, to the remnants of destroyed buildings, forensics is not only about diagnostics, but also about the rhetoric of persuasion. The aesthetic dimension includes it's means of presentation, the theatrics of its delivery, and it's form of image and gesture. Of present, forensic aesthetics carries with it grave political and ethical implications, spreading its impact across the cultural, socioeconomic, environmental and scientific landscape.
Working in collaboration with both the FBI New York Dept of Justice and the LAPD Archival Department. Under Black Carpets presents a meticulous deconstruction of several bank heists simultaneously occurring in downtown Los Angeles, focusing specifically on 5 different banks that centre One Wilshire. The work presents itself as site-specific forensic study. A spatial tool accompanied by a kit of parts, presented as a dense numerical index. Each artifact is individually numbered, assuming the role of the protagonist within the collection and pin-points it's own whereabouts on a grid of vertical and horizontal geographical coordinates. The viewer is invited to examine and cross-reference this collection, allowing ones own constructed interpretation of the event as it unfolds from muiltiple, distorted perspectives.
The suggestive narrative is flawed, over compensated, lacking in distinguishable truth and linearity. It is purposefully curated with the intention to seem overly fragmented, confusing and complex, much like that of a police investigation. The answer is still cloudy and unclear, but with hope for resolution.
Banks
The 5 banks targets, located
in Downtown Los Angeles.
Scale Model of Downtown Los Angeles
Grid and indexed map of events.
One Wilshire and the surrounding
5 banks.
Presidential Limoscene
Grid and indexed map of events.
One Wilshire and the surrounding
5 banks.
American Airlines, A300
Board Member suspected of igniting
the leaking gas, with the butt
of his cigar.
Los Angeles Police Academy
Located at:
1880 Academy Dr,
Los Angeles, CA 90012
© Ilona Gaynor 2013
Concept, Design, Direction: Ilona Gaynor
Research Assistants: Sarah Needham, Jisu Choi,
Jeremy Eichenbaum, Will Frohn, Simon Jeal and Lucy Silverwood
Ongoing Advisors: FBI Department of Justice - New York City and the
Los Angeles Police Department - Archival Dept
Special Thanks: Tim Durfee, Ben Hooker,
Norman Klien, Anne Burdick, Diego Trujillo and Ian Besler
Research generously funded by: Sir Ridley Scott
Early study funded and supported by: Art Center College of Design