Che Maraschino: How did you come up with the name EE?
Environmental Encroachment: We like the letters. We were trying to come up with a name that describes what we do. On the back of a bike we saw two letters that looked like "EE", which we peeled off, xeroxed, and made into our first logo.
CM: The name sounds like you're invading something.
EE: We call it Environmental Encroachment because we want people to be aware that we're encroaching on the land. We're putting something on the land and taking it down. We're saying "environmental" because we set up our own environments.
Sometimes we're invited, sometimes not. We like environments that have encroached on us, like urban dump-scapes, or areas where people don't normally go, maybe abused areas. We like the fact that even though we may not be doing something exactly right, there's something positive about it. Our work involves personal navigation, like having to find the show in the first place.
CM: What are some of the spots where you've had encroachments?
EE: We've had a show underneath a huge drawbridge over the Chicago River, we've had a number of shows on a large abandoned railroad lot between Roosevelt and 18th Street, and we've had indoor shows. At Humboldt Park Lagoon, we went there on July 31st which turned out
to be the hottest day of the summer. We waded to an island where you have to cross this soggy marsh to get to it-so most people don't go there. Only three kinds of people hand out there: fishermen, kids who are exploring, and heroin junkies. The cops let them go there and observe it from a distance. The place is littered with needles, and human shit, everywhere, especially after a month of summer. So we took people out to this island and drew a map of the exact location for a flyer. It was fairly uncomfortable because of the heat, and because it was hard to walk thru the lagoon, on a series of logs to the island, and peering eyes.
We go out to these places and set up inter-active sculpture that people can get physically active with. In Humboldt (Chicago neighborhood) we set up a net in the trees and set up a zip-line that people could take a ride on and fall into the net. We occupied previously unexplored space. It was magical floating in a riding and jumping into a giant hammock surrounded by branches, leaves and a cool breeze.
We don't talk about it much, but a a lot of people who go to these shows talk about fear. Not just of the location, but overcoming their fear, challenging themselves to interact with the sculpture. Many who come to the shows are too afraid to go down the zip line, go up on the bridge, too afraid to even go up into the tree. So its very challenging to the individual. Our invitations are very non-descriptive so people don't go any idea of rule or structure, so its all up to them what they do.
Certain characters tend to get everyone going at EE shows. Children are very daring and that inspires adults. They realize that it's a performance event and get into it, very much like playground behavior. We've had a professional dancer come in and do aerial stunts as well.
CM: Why is the site so important?
EE: The site is crucial. Because we bring something positive to the site. Humboldt's been known to be a very negative place, a place people would rather forget about or never find. Even after giving instructions and a map, a lot of people didn't even find our installation.
CM: Like the 18th St. Bridge show. I saw the net from up on the bridge, but couldn't figure out how to get down there. But the actual show-what people do when they're there-is another challenge.
EE: Yeah. We're setting up obstacles, if you will. The whole thing is supposed to be a process for the individual. Its a different in that respect. At most shows, everything is set up for you Someone makes sure you know the address. And there's gonna be wine for you. And everything is set up to lull you into an image of something. But the way we go about it from the very start, from getting there, and your purpose for being there is all questionable. Nothing is obvious or written down. We do the shows in interesting places so people can explore them and d go beyond. We want people to get a flavor for the atmosphere as well as the "artwork". Psychological environments.
CM: What does it take to pull off an EE event?
EE: We spend about a month planning a show before it happens. Like Humboldt, we went out a couple of times before we found the site.
Then we'll go out there and begin measuring and planning how we're going to set up the sculpture. And then we go home and plot it and draw it out. We even build models. But the day it happens; it has to be smooth, we have to set up in a couple of hours without a hitch.
CM: What was the draw-bridge show like?
EE: The bridge installation was attached under huge metal drawbridge on 18th street over the river just west of Clark St. We draped thou cargo nets with two swings over the nets. So it was called, 2SSN-two swings/two nets.
We didn't have a ladder to attach the net. We had to climb up into the girders with cars going overhead o attach the net. That's a space that had never been occupied before, just like the space in the air on the island in Humboldt Park.
CM: What were the highlights of the show?
EE: Its was last October 2nd, and there were tons of boaters going by on the river to take them back into the slips. Caravans of canoers and motorized boats. I'd say maybe a thousand boaters saw us over the course of the day. Some just sped by, and other freaked out, slowed down and gawked. Only a few stopped to talk. Most people didn't know how to react to dancers suspended in a net. There have been rumors that we're militant hippies.
That we're preparing for some kind of militant army for the future [Laughs].
At one point we noticed these tall-masted boats backed up at the next bridge, and realized the bridge was going to go up soon, and got everyone off the bridge and it went up! At one point a Police Boat went by towing another boat. We could tell he was baffled-25 people up in the is net shaking around. We could see him get on the radio, and there was a mad scamper out of the net, and one girl was afraid, and could get out of the net. We finally got here out. We told the police we were from the Art Institute and we're doing an art project and fashion show, they said next time we should get permission.
At our first New Years Eve show we didn't have announcements or flyers, but we still had about 35 people show up. That was at the big lot around 16th street. We hung the net with kind of a mountain elevated in the middle. One of the highlights was a friend who is a contact improv dancer who was tumbling in the net, with a lot of music, and birds playing above him. We all started tumbling and dancing in the net, as music and playground things happened all around.
CM: What about insurance?
EE: Well that brings up at the next show, at Fat Louie's loft (Racine and Lake street). That was our first indoor show. We got the Reader to write it up and a lot of people came by. We had a 60000 foot loft space but show had to get insurance. No one would insure us because of the nature of the event. So instead, we talked to some lawyers wand wrote up our own waivers that we made people sign as they came in. We had a sound installation of a waterfall going through a mic, we had bird noises set up on CD, we had drums, we had a complicated double-net installation with wall projections and an installation underneath of weeds and found industrial object. We ha and the see=saw. We had the original saucer swing, and a photo documentation section. We had Dave's four person bike riding people and clearing people from its path in the gallery space.
This year's New Year's Show blew that one out. This one had another huge net. You had to climb up onto this elevated tree and ride a long gondola ride. Only seven people rode it. It took you about 100 feet down. We had another small zip line that released into a net. Most people rode that. We had a bonfire pit and live music. And there was a huge cement lot with the bike out there. We had drums mounted on the bike, too. The see-saw. This was all in the snow. About 60 people showed up to this playground in a remote lot. No one even goes to playgrounds in the snow!
CM: Are there other people who set up installations on desolate urban areas the way you do?
EE: People started having these kinds of happenings in the 60's where they would gather people and have the people be part of the art work. Survival Research Laboratories in San Francisco is out there, but it's all kind of based on negativity. Dead meat being ripped apart, Deconstruction and destruction-- kind of gross things. Same kind of thing with the band Crash Worship, pagan fire rituals, etc. Which can be positive, but EE is trying to really hype up the positive experience. a key difference is that we're very interactive. It's not us people are looking at, but themselves. That's a challenge for us, to keep that going, because it could get to a point where people look at us because they like what we do, but we try to keep the premise that this is a gift. We're giving people an experience with themselves.
CM: When you say its a gift, does that mean you don't charge?
EE: No, we ask for donations. We don't rule out asking people for money. When we say its a gift, I mean what does Crash Worship give you when you pay five dollars to see a show? At last if you're gonna be there with a bunch of gerbils, you might as well be running around in a cage or something. The only thins you can do at those concerts or events is act negatively to get attentions or participate-like slam dancing or run up and try to destroy the objects. It's a hard to act positively in that kind of environment and comfortably interact with people. But we are trying to borrow things from groups like Crash Worship. We want to do an indoor show in the same place they did a show. So we do ride off the similarities. To a certain extent we have to do that to et people to understand.
CM: Who in the art world do you think has had an effect on you?
EE: Dennis Oppenheim, Michael Heitzer, and Robert Smithson. Then there's Gordon Matta-Clark, who was a great conceptual architectural sculptor, and a great documentarian of his own work. He cut through buildings-literally would partly demolish a building through an organized set of mathematical patterns and optical illusions and create something intriguing-by chopping walls out, cutting thru walls, things like that. He documented it all with his own conceptual photography. He was the son of Matta, the famous surrealist painter. Kevin Cooney, our friend from EE, fell down an elevator shaft while exploring, but luckily didn't get hurt. He was in a building by himself, which is a no-no. He originally showed us many, many fascinating sites around Chicago and exploring with him.
CM: What about Chris Burdon?
EE: Chris Burdon is more of an individualist. He had himself shot in a gallery, but he does some cool things. He set up a gallery show where you had to enter a turnstile which was connected to a mechanism that pushed out the wall. So theoretically if enough people came to the show, the ceiling would collapse. Interactive, yes; destructive, yes. Chris Burdon is really diverse.
As artists, we're trying to inspire people to consider playgrounds as a serious medium. Playgrounds encompass a lot of art. It has sculpture as well as performance, design, interaction, color, shapes, and site location.
CM: What about the psychological element. I mean people are taken back to a place in their mind for the first time in decades-what does that do to adults?
EE: That's why the kids often inspire the adults in our shows. Lots of our events have something to do with children. We had a friend come to the indoor show during the day, when it was more mellow, and get into the net with his family. Once he got in there with his son, they really bonded, played. A lot of things like that happen at our shows.
We're taking art beyond the usual social context. I've watched people walk into the Art Institute and the MOMA countless times, people who walk by the greatest painting on earth and their facial expression don't change. I can remember lots of people at our shows giggling like kids in the middle of a zip line ride or net fall. No trip the Louvre or the Prado will do that.
CM: What do you think of performance art in general?
EE: We would like to get into timed events, but right now our work involves interactive performance. People are not supposed to be there the whole time. Like a playground, you go to on your own time and play and leave. We like to deep i organized and chaotic at the same time. For EE there are all these words thrown around in the art world-performance installation, site-specific, interactive, all these genre catchwords EE is somewhere in there. But we're not on stage for people to watch. We set up events for people to work with their on media. If there ever was a performance element, it would be something that would work itself through everyone.
CM: What are your future plans?
EE: We want to do a piece like the giant see-saw in the future, but be able to suspend it from bridges our up in a tree. The see-saw is on a tripod mounted on wheels. The tripod is set on four feet, on a mechanism that allows it to teeter as well as rotate, and roll around. It lifts the rider about 15 feet up in the air. We would also like to explore new environments-go into neighborhoods like Watts and set up a playground.
We look forward to the challenge of touring, going to places we don't really know. We're going to have to see a space We're figure it out in a few hours. Hopefully the sites will be different-caves, hills, waterfalls. We'd like to eventually parachute out of a plane to a new that's hanging over the Rio Grande gorge bridge or some exotic place. But not just us-set it up so anyone can do it. We want people togo out and challenge themselves while they explore their environment.
CM: What is the EE 96 tour about?
EE: Well, here's the plan. We're going to go down to New Orleans and do an indoor show at a loft and possible an outdoor show at Ottoman Park where's there's a lot of cool old oak trees. Then we're going to go out to New Mexico to an artists house who wants us to do a permanent playground. installation his property near Taos. He wants to do that because there's no playground for the neighborhood kids. And we'll be doing our first floating swing piece in the Rio Grande. We want togo to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge which elevated about 1000 feet over a massive canyon and strap the net under the bridge, possibly use rope climbing equipment. the fourth stop of the show is Mesa National Part in Southwest Colorado. This will be an ancient urban show. The thing thats magical about the tour is that once we leave Chicago the entire tour is all a performance. I mean when bands go on tour their equipment is all set up in pre-planned places. Everything is laid out. This is a different adventure.
CM: Any final word?
EE: We try to outdo ourselves at every show. But no matter how hard you try, its really up to the people and audience, being interactive. After eight shows, we have developed a good following. If you would like to get involved setting up shows, contact Environmental Encroachment at www.encroach.net
Click here for our Images Page, where you find images of these shows.
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