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Hi, my name is Karyn Olivier.
I’m an artist in residence at University of Houston.
And I’m here to work on this project called Inbound:
Houston and it’s a public art project that
I’m doing here. And I’m really using billboards
as the medium. And the project is really a project
for commuters. Yes, I want art people to
be engaged but for me, what really stood out
to me about Houston when I first moved down
here was the intense driving culture here.
And the billboards played such a big role in that.
I have always felt that when I was driving,
it was about the sky and the sky and billboards,
these billboards kind of framing some information.
So I kept thinking about commuters, and you
driving on this freeway every day. And I
kept thinking what can I do with billboards to
make them expand what they can do?
I mean, normally, they function in a way
where they are about commodity or commerce and
advertising a service, but I kept thinking maybe
billboards can enter the art realm in some way.
So, the first thing I kept thinking about was,
how could, what’s a simple way of shifting the billboard,
billboard shifting the landscape, and I kept
thinking what would happen if I put what’s
behind the billboard, what exists behind
the billboard on the billboard
So, in a way it wasn’t about making the billboards
invisible and disappear. It’s a part of our culture.
Billboards are a part of our culture.
So, on some level, I don’t want to get rid
of them per say, but I wanted to just take
the frame and expand what its possibilities are.
And I kept thinking about commuters on a freeway.
You know, if you’re on a freeway every week, every day
billboards, in a way you don’t pay attention to
billboard ads in a way because you see them every day
and it’s repeated. So, what happens if I insert
something that’s kind of not supposed to be there,
but kind of inserting nature back where it should be?
So, I think that could be kind of an interesting?
thing where it’s complete artifice, and it’s not real,
but the idea of what happens, that I’m hoping that
maybe I can allow people to have a pause.
Like, I know that when I’m driving I become so insular,
and I’m just thinking about things to do
that day. So what happens if you can kind
of cap something in the periphery that
seems right, but it’s completely off
and maybe on one level just might make you kind of
just wake up that moment and just kind of be present
in the present. And also just think about how
billboards mostly kind of function where they
don't function they don’t really talk about
the present moment like your actual physical state.
It’s more about oh, you see a sign for,
I don’t know, Target say or Walmart and you
think to yourself, “Oh I need to go there,
I need to buy that thing in the future” or you think,
“I have to do that thing in the past.”
But it’s never really about that present moment,
so I’m hoping that these billboards will kind of,
kind of awaken you and decide to do something
that moment. But there’s also this thing about
the billboards where I’m trying to have
this illusion become real and it’s not
going to happen I don’t think often but maybe
it’d be interesting if maybe one day you’re driving
and you finally notice it. And maybe one day you
finally have this surreal or uncanny moment happen
where maybe the sky, the billboard and the sky will
actually match up, the sky actually matches up
that day. So it’s almost like I’m giving, you know,
commuters a gift or maybe a chance to like,
almost like a game of chance. So hopefully it
can be kind of fun and interesting and actually
maybe have people question maybe,
“Why would someone want to do this?"