Tollbooth Junction 11th & Broadway was a collection of various subway rides that the artist, Bridget Irish, had taken over the past several years, and filmed on Hi-8 video. Featured subway routes, shot when traveling above ground and during the day, included: NYC’s D-Line Brooklyn to Coney Island route and back, Chicago’s downtown loop from the Green Line, and Boston’s Blue Line from downtown to last stop Wonderland. These videos are as much studies in motion, form and light, as they are travel diary excerpts. With the inclusion of an enlarged snapshot of a newspaper stand vendor at NYC’s World Trade Center subway stop, the Tollbooth was transformed into a transit station portal where nothing stops except passersby long enough to take a look. Tacoma’s own light-rail, LINK, is stealthily included in the installation loop.

Jared Pappas-Kelley: A lot of your work that I’ve seen combines performance and video/film, but is also related to portraiture. How do you approach this?

Bridget Irish: That’s a good question. A lot of the film and video pieces that I would consider portraiture have to do with subjects that interested me for whatever reason - the person, object, location, light, color - and I guess some may be considered experimental documentary or of that nature – while the performances are often conceived with an audience in mind, with a focus on being directly interactive with its members and/or the space in some way. Pieces like Nude Ascending Staircase (a short video), or performing Twister, incorporate combinations of portraiture and performance while their origins (and success) rely on spontaneity. Yes, the concepts consist of a particular structure and maybe a few rules to give me an additional challenge, but once started, it’s pretty open to chance, and that combined with an audience - their energy, their willingness to participate or engage, and at what level, plays a big part in the live performance work.

JPK: You’ve been involved with a number of projects over the years such as the first Ladyfest, Homo A GoGo, Doctor Frockrocket's Vivifying(Re-animatronic)Menagerie and Medicine Show. Projects like these seem to inform a lot of your practice. Can you tell me a little about these projects?

BI: Oh gosh, the festivals and Doctor Frockrocket... I haven’t considered how they’ve informed my practice, that’s an interesting thought. Given that context, I’m not sure what it is you’d like to know about those particular projects but here goes…During Ladyfest, besides curating film video and performance art, I performed almost 24-7 for the six days of the festival as an MC with a Brooklyn accent – that persona’s carried over into other times I’ve acted as MC. The opportunity to have been a part of creating Ladyfest was a particularly valuable learning experience for working with such a big group and as an artist working with/scheduling other artists. With Homo A GoGo, as the coordinator for film and video, I had the opportunity to argue for work that may not have otherwise been shown, I think because it was really difficult, challenging work that demanded the viewer’s attention to confronting and questioning what they were seeing, which made it the exact reason to include it in the programming. Dr. Frockrocket – that was an amazing experience for sure. A lot of different things were occurring throughout that whole project - with group dynamics, personal relationships, tour, a national tragedy… It was interesting to see it through to this point where it seemed an analogy for a national condition at the time. The menagerie consisted of various performers with very different pieces, so the cohesion between one act and the next was contingent on Dr. Frockrocket’s presence and “narration” between various performers, as he was going through this process of falling apart before the audience, eventually being abandoned by the creatures that were under his control until the magic elixir wore off and they could “see” for themselves again.

JPK: Your show, Tollbooth Junction 11th & Broadway, at the Tollbooth featured footage you shot of above ground subway rides on the Brooklyn – Coney Island, Downtown Chicago – Garfield, and Boston – Wonderland runs, and intermingled it with footage of the new Link line in Tacoma. How did this project come about?

BI: Every time I travel I have some sort of camera (or two) with me, and I really enjoy recording rides I take on the subway or intercity transit of other cities. When initially approached to do a piece for the Tollbooth, I knew I wanted to do something site specific. I kept going to the site for inspiration, and had a couple of ideas, like using the travel/subway footage I’d been collecting. When I finally realized part of the Link route runs just a street down from the Tollbooth, the whole piece came together.

It’s funny just how attached I’ve become to using a camera, or this compulsion to record. There was one trip where I’d run out of money and couldn’t buy more tapes and didn’t want to tape over what I had. When riding the Amtrak from Chicago to Minneapolis, I had to calm myself out of a panic attack as I watched this gorgeous landscape unfolding before me which I couldn’t capture beyond experiencing it in the present moment.

JPK: I remember seeing an earlier incarnation of some of this footage that you screened at a Don’t Bite the Pavement with an audio piece. Can you tell me a bit about this?

BI: That piece was an excerpt from the Chicago subway loop footage I videotaped during my first trip there in 2001. The soundtrack for that screening was an original recording by Olympia music artist, Myello (aka Daniel Farrell). There were a couple events where Daniel mixed his own music live with the video projection and that was really great.

JPK: We received a lot of feedback about the image featuring the World Trade Center subway stop vendor that you used for the paper side of your installation. Can you tell me about the image?

BI: During a trip to NYC in Spring 2004, I went to the WTC site soon after I’d arrived. Once there, I couldn’t believe how effected by it I became. I walked the parameter a few times actually, attempting to plot out a piece, but I just couldn’t do it. Finally, I kind of gave up and went down to catch the next subway to wherever and on my way this fellow caught my eye – he looked kind of tiny and waiting, peering out from this box there in the midst of all this junk – the candy bars and magazines – so I asked him if I could take his picture. I had a digital camera with me, so was able to show him the photo afterwards, and he actually has a really nice smile.

JPK: How is this photograph specific to the WTC (and/or events there)? The concept seems so loaded, but was it a conscious decision to photograph someone who was there? …and how conscious were you of revealing that fact and how viewers would respond, or relate?

BI: It wasn’t until writing the description for the Tollbooth piece that I made the loose connection between the Boston Subway footage (filmed in 2001, just days before 9/11) and the photo of the WTC vendor. I didn’t consider it terribly significant, rather I mentioned it as a matter of coincidence from my own experiences. It’s important to note, I think, that this information wasn't included on the actual installation but only in the press release, and in the description I’d provided to the San Francisco Art Institute’s “Now Showing” site (a listing of shows and events by current and former SFAIers). There was a woman who contacted me via email, in response to the photo posted there, which I’d captioned “WTC Newspaper Vendor.” She said the image had stopped her cold, that she’d worked there prior to 9/11, and believed that many of those newspaper vendors were actually information cells. It was a really interesting email - I wrote her back, told her I didn't think that this guy was a cell and thanked her for sharing her story with me. Once the print was installed, I didn’t think about its associations with the WTC so much as how the portrait of this newspaper stand, vendor, and person-of-color may be received in terms of being accepted as a part of or out of place in the area the photo was being displayed and in relation to the video loop. While I consider Tacoma to be more ethnically diverse than Olympia, I’m not sure that the proximity of the Tollbooth Gallery’s location accurately reflects that diversity.

JPK: What was your primary response when the Tollbooth approached you for an installation?

BI: Honored and excited!

JPK: What appeals to you about a project like the Tollbooth?

BI: That it’s a free, truly open to the public, 24-7 exhibition space, showcasing work by artists using a couple of the most ubiquitous mediums on the planet.

JPK: What were your biggest concerns when approaching the project?

BI: I wasn’t sure what I would do for the paper portion, but that worked itself out.

JPK: How do you think video and paper based work lend themselves to a public art space?

BI: Perfect! Especially given that video and paper are the same mediums used by advertisements. I think people may encounter Tollbooth exhibits in this way that may cause them to ask: Is this information, an ad, or, what is it? I mean, at what point would someone recognize something as being an ad or art, or even consider that something is art? Perhaps the kind of public art possibilities the Tollbooth offers may help shift/alter viewers’ perceptions of advertisements and art. When I went to ride the Link, I saw the video at the Theater District stop of a dancer- I wondered if it was an ad or an installation? I love stuff like that in general, and for the questions they may raise regarding distinctions (or not) between advertising, which can be an art in itself and certainly borrows from art, and then art, which is kind of advertising one’s opinions, perceptions or expression and sometimes made in response to advertising, etc... I don't know why I'm thinking so much about advertising and art, but there it is...

JPK: How does Tollbooth Junction 11th & Broadway fit into your past work? Can you tell me how one piece relates to/evolves into another project?

BI: As I’ve been collecting travel footage for some time, this project was a great opportunity to share some of that in a context developed specifically for the site. I think the idea for the Tollbooth piece was a natural segue from a store-front display made earlier in the fall for Dumpster Values, in Olympia. Becky Valentine made this city-scape from stacked cardboard boxes and paint and I contributed to the piece by placing two small monitors among the “buildings” that played video loops of Chicago and NYC/Brooklyn above-ground subway rides.

JPK: Can you tell me about your new online project Uniform?

BI: The idea for UNIFORM was motivated by my return to the same temporary job I’ve had for the past four years, working full-time during the Legislative Session. Each session I’ve had to sign a contract, to agree to being politically neutral throughout my employ there, basically, forfeiting my rights to freedom of speech while on the job or its location. I’d been going through my closet, picking out appropriate wardrobe for session, when I started thinking about that map CNN used to display the election results on their website, watching the various states turn blue or red, and all the flag-waving that’s been going on since this last war began, and then notions of patriotism, uniformity, and those colors, breaking them down into: red - war and the state of the union, white - for work, and the white collar position I occupy, and blue -loyalty, a true blue patriot… from all that came the idea that while I worked this job, I would limit myself to wearing clothing in combinations of red, white and blue only - hence, UNIFORM. I’m trying to keep up-to-date documentation of it on-line at http://www.filmanddestroy.org/irish-uniform.htm. It's been over 2 and half months now, only two people have commented so far, and I'm pretty much sick of wearing red white and blue... I've got about 4 more months to go.

JPK: Whose work are you excited by lately?

BI: Naomi Uman, TV Carnage, and people who are making free flash films for view on the internet, like that Viking Kittens animation.

JPK: What else are you currently working on?

BI: Besides UNIFORM... well... my partner, Bryan Connolly, and I had a one-track cassette recording of some improvised songs we'd taped in our living room in McCloud's art show called FRUIT. We make a lot of tapes in our living room but this is the first one we've put out there for others to listen to. For the month of March, I’m showing work at the Olympia Clothing Project - photo and video portraits involving a particular intersection of people's clothing, and the experimental film qualities of fabric. In addition to performing occasionally, such as with Shizuno Wynkoop at the Women’s DIY Health Conference in February (that was fun!), I also make film and video shorts that I’ve either shot or uses found footage. One of my long-term projects is sorting through all the Hi-8 I’ve shot over the past 10 years, to make more videos from, and maybe a feature-length piece... oh! and the socks project with my cat Ootini... and paying my taxes one of these days... yeah, that's about it I think. I also volunteer with the Olympia Film Society, and have been working on setting-up a new non-linear-editing station for the OFS Media Studio which should be available for use by OFS Members by mid-March.

www.bridgetirish.com

www.filmanddestroy.org