When I began thinking about getting a divorce six years ago, the first question most friends asked was, “What will you do?” (Translation: “How will you survive financially?”) For me the more important question was; “Are you happy at home and in your relationship?” The answer sadly was “No”. Anxiety about the unknown is palpable, and when I contemplated my future I was definitely scared. But I also saw the potential for another chance and this far outweighed my fear. Staying put because I wasn’t sure of my future felt disingenuous to my son, my ex and myself. The hardest part of deciphering any confusing or complicated situation is asking the right questions.
Photographing and observing lottery transactions at small neighborhood convenience stores at first made me question, is it ethical for states to be in the gambling business in order to cover budget shortfalls? But after getting to know players and especially the vendors, I started asking different questions concerning the neighborhood benefit these small shops provide versus the entitlement, or the portion of lottery proceeds the state pays back to each city and town across Massachusetts. The amount each town receives is based on a complicated formula, published on the MA lottery website and NOT on how much has been spent on buying tickets in that town:
Although I’m not sure (yet) what Town Equalization Value means or how it is calculated, it’s clear that in the current economic climate, the amount of money each town gets back is increasingly important. Whether you play the lottery or not, your city or town is becoming more dependent on the entitlement it receives and this is something that impacts all of us.
Lately I’ve been gathering a lot of lottery data and looking for ways to make it visual, because it’s often easier to see hidden relationships in a different format besides numbers. I decided to make some pie charts for several towns comparing the total lottery expenditures with the entitlement (i.e, community benefit). I want to see how the pieces of the pie are being distributed. I am also looking at the median income of these towns to see what correlations might exist:
Looking only at the numbers paints a different picture. Picturing data in seductive colorful circles is a new way of telling a story. Clearly further investigation is needed; why does the town of Lincoln receive almost 500% back on what is spent in the town? (no answer yet, but a good question…)
As part of my grant from the Somerville Arts Council, I’m creating a storefront installation that will debut in December in Davis Square. For one of the windows I’m working on colorful charts like these to make my lottery research more accessible. But I also want to find ways of engaging with the people in the street; a new audience that exists outside the typical institutional setting of a gallery or museum. Three days each week, I will be setting up a table and interacting with passerbys, getting them to provide their comments on what they think of the lottery, neighborhood stores and the distribution of entitlements. I want to have a conversation with the people who are directly, albeit perhaps unknowingly, impacted by these entitlements. At the end of each day their comments will be added to the exhibit. I am excited about creating an artwork based on such an organic system; an artwork that changes and evolves over the course of the exhibit based on the participation of the community.
In creating my project, I’m drawing on a rich history of artists whose artistic process utilizes a visual system for picturing data. Many of these artists also engage with the public to activate their findings. Hans Haacke’s work from 1971 provides a good example of a simple visual system. Participating in a show called Information, he installed two empty plexiglass containers, and posed the following question to MOMA visitors:
Would the fact that Governor Rockefeller has not denounced President Nixon’s Indochina Policy be a reason for you not to vote for him in November?
Yes votes were directed to the left container and No votes to the right. Governor Rockefeller was planning a run for president at the time but he was also a board member at MOMA. Although we may be more used to seeing political referendums in museums and galleries today, this was quite radical in 1971. I’m really drawn to the colorful way the see-through structures visually articulate the poll results and the idea that the results evolved over the course of the exhibit.
A second more complex example is artist Mark Lombardi. His drawings resemble giant web-like constellations, but upon closer scrutiny they reveal a network of sinister connections between financial organizations, high-ranking government officials, US intelligence and organized crime. Lombardi was a meticulous researcher, culling information from a variety of print news and Internet journals. As the data streams he collected became more complex, Lombardi found he was able to make more sense of the players’ connections by drawing them out on large sheets of paper. Here is a view of his magnum opus, BCCI-ICIC & FAB, (1972-91). It is a depiction of a corrupt worldwide financial network of shells involved in extensive money laundering. Among the players pictured is Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law, Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi banker and former BCCI director:
To more fully appreciate the quality of the drawing and research here is a detail:
Lombardi may be the only artist ever sought out by the F.B.I. The Whitney Museum of American Art received a phone call from an F.B.I. agent, five weeks after the September 11th terrorist attacks, looking for a reproduction of this drawing to help with their investigation. With no reproduction available the agent was forced to look at the drawing during regular museum hours.
Finally, I am forever inspired and challenged by the work of Felix Gonzàlez-Torres. This piece is known simply as, Untitled (portrait of Ross). It’s 175 lbs of sucking candy that gets piled up into the corner of a gallery space.
Visitors are encouraged to help themselves to candy and at the end of the day, the candy is weighed and replenished back to it’s original 175-lbs. So what is the meaning here?
Ross Laycock was Felix’s partner and lover for 8 years, when he was diagnosed with aids. He eventually succumbed to the virus in 1991. Before his illness, doctors had set an ideal weight of 175 lbs for Ross, but as the disease progressed, his body weight slowly diminished. As viewers take and eat the candy, the artwork physically decreases in size, reminding us of Ross’ decline. I have seen this work exhibited many times and watching the pile of candy slowly disappear always moves me. Gallery guards play a significant role, encouraging visitors to take the candy and at MOMA I heard the guards say, “go ahead, take a handful; they replace it everyday.” It’s wonderful to see visitors’ shocked reactions at being encouraged to handle and interact with an artwork.
Felix died from aids in 1996, but his work, including this piece, continues to be exhibited. In many ways his work echoes the cycles of life; the sweetness of love and the sadness of loss; to have and to hold and to then let go. The layers of meaning are infectious, not necessarily providing any answers, but provoking damn good questions.
I’ve heard varying accounts about how things ended up; it failed, it succeeded… but like most lottery players, the estate claims “Jefferson broke even.“
