Herd Morality

1994-95

(Site-specific installation for the Center of the Arts, Yerba Buena Gardens)

The scene invites us to accept the unexpected and re-enchant the skeptical cool corridors of downtown San Francisco; 35 Queen Anne tables – pieces of furniture to be used for display, to eat from, to read and meet at, associated generally with domestic sobriety – but the tables have turned. Escaped, they run together, alive and searching, like a herd of wild buffalo roaming across the urban plains, they spill in waves off the sides of the Center for the Arts, jumping from one roof to another, down to and across the courtyard below.

“HERD MORALITY” alludes to the fundamental uncontrollability of nature in an urban setting, how people, objects and environment, regardless of construct, inevitably and intrinsically are tied to the mysterious, chaotic, and organic. Barriers drop between people and things, objects and intentions.