A Canadian artist and his assistant are towing a uniquely designed art project down Route 66 with a 1989 Volkswagen Westfalia. The artist stopped at the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame & Museum on Thursday, reported the Pontiac Daily Leader.
The sculpture made of a dozen angled mirrors, called Seed Engine. Artist Randall Anderson of Toronto is bringing along four cameras at different angles to document the sculpture as it’s pulled down the Mother Road during the next two months or so.
The Leader explained:
As an example Anderson said someone riding by on a bicycle would be caught in a reflection by one of the cameras before shooting off one direction and then being captured in a reflection by another camera fixed at a different angle.
“It breaks up the experience and I believe that’s how people experience the world,” said Anderson. “It’s all broken up. I am standing here and others are around me and we are all occupying the same space, but we see it in different ways from different angles.
While Anderson said most artists are locked away in galleries or museums, he prefers the live public performances. Anderson has been around the world, making a name for himself by working on his art out in a public space. Though he says it’s not the most monetarily rewarding way to make art, he believes it’s rewarding in terms of the connections he makes with other people.
“Like many art pieces, this is a conversation starter,” said Anderson. “I named the piece Seed Engine because it plants a seed of ideas as it moves. It draws people’s imaginations in. In fact, it’s almost overwhelming. I didn’t think people would move to it so quickly.” […]
Anderson, who grew up with a father whose profession was long-haul trucking, said he sees Route 66 as a defining highway. He said when he thought of all the different objects that move along the road, he thought it would be fantastic to capture all those vehicles and people experiencing it just as it was experiencing them.
“The thing about Route 66, is that it’s in the public imagination around the world,” said Anderson. “When you think highway, you think Route 66. We are traveling the Trans-Canada Highway because we’re Canadians, but Route 66 is definitely the one in popular imagination.”
Anderson plans on taking about 12 terabytes worth of photos during his journey. Many of those photos eventually will be posted on the Seed Engine website. Anderson also is maintaining a blog, which he updates regularly. At last report, he was in mid-Missouri.