Friday 22nd July 2016
We admit it - we have a (quite possibly unwholesome) fascination with actor Shia LaBeouf's desire to transition from the world of Hollywood movies to that of a serious artist. It's been a fairly rocky road so far, as we've discussed several times in our coverage of his past projects, but you cannot fault the guy for his tenacity.
His latest project is another performance installation piece, in a sense, one that was commissioned by the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art in Colorado, and the Finnish Institute in London. Titled 'Take Me Anywhere', LaBeouf and two of the other artists in his artist collective have agreed to tweet their locations at noon, somewhere in Colorado. Whoever arrives first at that location can pick them up and drive them anywhere, as the name would suggest.
It's a vaguely intriguing project, although it's sort of equally vague about what they hope to achieve. Ostensibly, the goal is to explore the possibility of human corruption, although it's hard to imagine them actually coming into physical danger, despite what Hollywood and the media would have us believe.
"They opening themselves up to goodness or possibly the corrupt nature. It's about openness and exploration and connecting to people," explains the director of the festival, Nicole Dial-Kay.
"We want this to be a really organic process where things can happen," she said. "We don't want to put any limits on what might happen, because it may stop something wonderful from happening."
It's hard not to wonder what this project would be like if LaBeouf weren't involved, because his recognizability from numerous films would be quite likely to alter the public's perception of the work. Even some villain with nefarious plans would likely think twice about kidnapping a famous actor - unless, of course, they weren't a fan of his movies.
Conversely, it's possible that someone would go out of their way to target him for the same reason.
If you remember recently there was another similar art project where a hitchhiking robot was designed and managed to get transported all the way across the United States before finally being destroyed in Philadelphia (way to go, jerks). Hopefully, LaBeouf and his colleagues won't find themselves in a similar situation - or, for that matter, in Philadelphia.
Posted on July 22nd 2016 on 06:13pm
