Down

10,000 photographs to be taken:

by 1000 people,
over the course of 1 month,
anywhere,
of 1 square meter of sidewalk,
from the perspective of 1 meter above it,
looking down.

to be given as follows:

1 copy of the collection on a data DVD placed in a safety deposit box for a month,
10 copies of the collection on USB flash drives returned to the sidewalk with instructions,
100 large prints of the collection sold to the highest bidder on eBay,
1,000 small prints of the collection given to anyone interested at a public event,
10,000 images made available on a website for as long as $100 dollars will pay for it.

What can be said most importantly about public space at this moment is that it has all but gone. public space is only a designation: a particular use of a material presence and a social condition. The use, we referred to once as public, and on which we founded a republic–one served by rhetorical exchange, dialog–we have traded for the uni-verse of plutocratic domination of place by commerce, police, and information.

How can we not look down at the sidewalk with an overwhelming melancholy ache for the vibrant life it had once grounded and supported. Can it be made to speak again of the life whose signs are surely etched in its stained and scarred surface? Written there are the words we have lost the place to speak.