Global Warming at the Icebox

On Sunday I attended the Global Warming at the Icebox show in the Crane Arts Building, which will be up from October 5- November 15, 2008.  I admit that my real reason for going was to see the piece King Ortler and Little Siberia, which Ryan and I worked on all summer with Professor Elizabeth Mackie. (You can see it in the background of this photograph.)  Yet another piece caught my eye almost from the start.  Miguel Luciano's Pimp My Piragua consisted of a bright orange pushcart containing a block of ice and bottles of flavoring.  The side of the cart had speakers built into it that blasted "Crank dat Iceman" by Soulja Boy and a small screen showed footage of icebergs on a continuous loop.  Throughout the opening, Luciano scraped the block of ice with a small metal scoop, and made piraguas, or snow cones, for anyone who asked.  His piece references the consumption that has led to global warming.  The addition of the music reminds us what the word "ice" has come to mean in popular culture, just as it is depleting in the natural world.  

I found that this piece was successful on a few levels.  Though I found Luciano's performance intrinsic to the piece, I can see that the cart itself will function as a sculpture during the rest of the exhibit--and the music and video will help bring some of the energy that he had to the stationary piece.  His performance both engaged and critiqued us.  I couldn't get the idea of that shaved ice out of my head, but I felt that asking for one would cause me to condemn myself along with the rest of the consumers at the opening.  The opening sickened me in a way, yet it seemed as though Luciano anticipated the hypocrisy and decided to harness it.  Perhaps the most ironic twist of all was the recycling bin placed outside near the beverages during the opening.  When I tried to toss my glass bottle in, I realized that the same people who attended this show on global warming must have thrown their garbage in with the recyclables.  It would be funny if it weren't so depressing.