SWING CITY is a project inspired by and encouraging of play—moreover, the potential for play—within the urban context. Aiming to delight the senses, the project proposes to install occupiable swings in various locations throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. As a means for promotion and in an effort to privilege the conscious observer, swing seats will be posted in collaged formations on public walls and surfaces around the city. Each seat will be printed with a map displaying “clip-in” locations. Thus starts an urban scavenger hunt, a ludic-constructive game with a playful reward at each swing station. Upon activation, the swings aim to generate new understandings of both physical space and visual perception. When not in motion, the swings will exist as woven art pieces—canopies that float above urban passageways—hovering just within view.
Swing City is a public art project that capitalizes on the diverse topology of San Francisco and its youthful constituency, one comprised of actual as well as adult children. Part-installation, part-performance and always participatory, the swings will make the most of San Francisco’s undulating terrain and windy atmosphere, taking advantage of city views and unused spaces, while finding homes in public parks, above sidewalks and on vacant lots.
In a city built to capacity with an appetite for historic preservation, we hope to work within and beyond the boundaries of visual art (object, event, environment, and experience . . . clandestine and otherwise). Swing city tests the limits of aggressive versus indirect approaches to the spatial mediation of San Francisco’s highly regulated (albeit superficially erratic) organization. In addition to enhancing the visual experience of the city, the idea is to steer a changing course: deviations from the habitual path that facilitate exploration, privilege the curious and, in their impermanence, ask the traveler to dwell less on a destination and more on the moment at hand. If these installations are well received, we hope to increase the population of swing city and subsequently, its ridership. Each swing represents the potential for new and collaborative approaches to art in the urban environment.
Months 1-3 will be spent investigating and confirming 3 sites for swing installations. As sites are confirmed, installations will be devised to meet to site conditions and material requirements (i.e. vacant lots will require both a framework and lattice while swings between trees may only require basic hardware and nylon cording). Once each swing is complete (by month 6 at the latest), promotions will begin – including the manufacture, printing and distribution/collaging of treated canvas seats. Our hope is to haveswing canopies in place by June 15th, 2012 in order to increase exposure and use over the summer months. Swing canopies will be unhitched and activated for use on weekend days (times to be confirmed) in order to ensure safe usage. An operator will be present during active hours and will safely reconfigure canopies at the end of swing use.