Forever People - Ascot J. Smith
A message from the future.
There’s no time like the future to prompt us to consider the present. Multimedia artist Ascot J. Smith’s Forever People, a custom-designed billboard commissioned by Art in the Loop for the ARTwall located at 13th and Grand, exists in the here and now but the story begins in the year 2200.
This contemporary work of art displays the image of a nameless couple from the future. The story involves their struggling relationship and a series of recorded messages sent back in time to prevent a dystopian future. Even a century from now, the nature of people doesn’t change. The couple uses the recordings to confess holographic love affairs and android rivalries. Sounds like a subplot from a Philip K. Dick novel; however, Smith’s fictional story forgoes the printed page and unfurls through a series of audio story episodes.
Viewers of the ARTwall can call the free phone number listed on the ARTwall billboard to hear the audio recordings. A new audio message episode will be updated every other Monday and will run for nine months. To hear the art, dial the number (816-412-1798) then enter the three-digit code (111) followed by the pound (#) sign.
Discussing the inspiration behind Forever People, Smith says, “I have been greatly influenced by artists like Chris Marker and Miranda July who have been able to seamlessly transition their stories into multiple mediums. From literature to film, to installation and performance, their sensibility and storytelling are always very clear. The ARTwall was another opportunity for me to explore narrative in a unique space. The idea of a futuristic couple sending messages into the past in part came from my interests in comic books and science-fiction stories. Forever People may be reminiscent of Brian K. Vaughn’s Y the Last Man, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, and Chris Marker's La Jetee.
The use of audio story episodes to complement a billboard invites people to participate not only visually, but also by dialing a phone number and listening to messages over a series of months. The art is interactive, taking advantage of the mobility of cell phones to connect people with a storyline.
“I didn't want to treat the ARTwall billboard as simply a placeholder for an image. I wanted to develop a public art narrative that utilized the nature of the billboard, something more than a static image,” says Smith. “The Art in Loop had been developing a phone number directory for viewers to call a number for their commissioned public art pieces that would be like an audio placard. Considering it is common for billboards to solicit phone numbers, I was able to develop a method for delivering the narrative. Admittedly the image will never change, but over time as viewers call in, their relationship to the billboard will. By borrowing Art in Loop’s phone line, I could begin adapting Forever People.”
In late 2005, Smith was chosen as one of six artists to create an image for the ARTwall billboard. The original Forever People was included in the On View exhibition in 2008 at the Paragraph gallery. “Originally conceived as a performance/installation, Forever People was exhibited with live actors,” explains Smith. “The actors stood perfectly still for over three hours as their corresponding vignettes were projected above their heads, like telepathic thought-balloons filling the gallery for all to see and hear. The original story presented two co-workers who contemplate and fantasize about each other in a post-apocalyptic future. A short film was created simultaneously using the images and audio from the installation.
“In many ways I consider the original piece a first draft, with each incarnation afterwards just another revision. Forever People exists, in my mind, as an infinitely developing narrative that I will adapt again and again.”
Rhiannon Birdsall and Albert Burnes, the two people featured in the billboard image, are local commercial/theater actors that Smith has worked with in the past. Their voices are used in the audio recordings. Smith chose to work with them for this project to convey a specific look, “a professionalism common to advertising photography.”
He adds, “With the help of photographer Robert Heishman, we were able to create a commercial-looking image that emulates that billboard feeling and presents a glimpse of a sterile glowing future.”
Smith, who lives and works in Kansas City, has also exhibited his work at the H&R Block Art Space and the Kansas City Filmmaker’s Jubilee. He held a residency with the Urban Culture Project (2006) and was a recipient of the ArtsKC Fund Inspiration Grant (2008). Past projects have included the 2007 installation Bloodsport Remix and the film Last Man of Idaho (2009), where he also used time travel as part of the storyline. Again with Forever People, he turns to time travel and uses it as a mechanism to explore other times through audio and visual narrative elements.
“I feel compelled to envision the brinks of human collapse, in part because I feel impatient and frustrated with the present,” says Smith about his fascination with the future. “There are no flying cars, or family vacations into outer space, or even universal health care. However, I try to mock these escapist feelings, because I also imagine in any futuristic setting people will always be bored or [experience] wanderlust, or use their imagination to hide from what they find common. So, I search for stories that contain fantastical elements, but are saturated with banality because that's what I find to be compelling.”
Smith has “no grand assumptions” about the impact of his artwork on display downtown. “But I suppose it's nice to have my little narrative quietly hiding around the multitude of ever-changing screaming images surrounding the Power and Light district.”
Stuck in the banality of the present, Smith gives us something to listen to and look at now and in the future.
About Art in the Loop
Art in the Loop is a non-profit organization (launched in 2004) dedicated to commissioning public art for Downtown Kansas City, Mo. The ARTwall is installed on the south-facing side of the Town Pavilion Parking Garage at 13th and Grand, and displays art as 36’ x 72’ digital prints on vinyl mesh.
This is the ARTwall’s fifth image installation, following Eros & Thanatos by artist Cortney Andrews. The ARTwall is a project of the Art in the Loop Foundation, a partnership of the Downtown Council of Kansas City, the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, the Kansas City Art Institute, and the Kansas City Municipal Art Commission. The ARTwall is funded by the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation with additional support from Copaken White and Blitt.
"Arts" is proudly sponsored by the Actor Training Studio.
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