LA Interchange
Luther Thie 2008

Working scale model of fountain (4' x 8') includes computer-controlled pump activated by real-time accident database. Fountain height varies between 5" and 20" depending on severity of accident. When a fatality occurs, the fountain attains its highest level and fades to blue.

For the final project, I propose a gigantic public water fountain at the intersection of the Santa Monica and Harbor freeways in Los Angeles activated by the highway accidents monitored by the California Highway Patrol Incident Report website. The artwork takes the form of a public parkland proposal consisting of site research, diagrams, plans and renderings, functioning software prototype, and a working scale model of the fountain and parkland. The software system uses real-time automobile accident information culled from the California Highway Patrol Incident Report website and would activate the enormous water fountain at the intersection of the freeways. Visitors on location at the park would also see a digital display streaming from the CHP website (location/region, date, time, accident type and status). This real-time data display system creates a real-time memorial to California highway accident victims. Highway activity can be viewed as a kind of “life-pulse” of the State transportation system. The fountain is, in a sense, the heart of the roadway system, reacting to the endless accident events on the highways. When a fatality occurs, the fountain rises to its highest possible point and blue lights illuminate the water feature, evoking a sublime moment of reflection for the spectators.

The project is partly inspired by the hyper-spectacle and techno-fetish of JG Ballard’s book, Crash, where people are obsessed with speed and highway collision, and its sexual connotations—a  commentary on our spectacle and catastrophe-obsessed culture. But it also provides a platform for empathetic remembrance of strangers passing away somewhere on a highway in California. It questions the idea of appropriate use of public data by showing the highway activity in a public context, in this case a park with a water fountain viewable by park visitors and motorists on nearby freeways. LA Interchange could bring together heterogeneous communities such as car crash fetishists, highway safety activists and downtown urban renewal groups. California Highway Patrol and safety advocacy groups might support such a feature as it could serve as a warning sign to motorists to slow down, much like signs on dangerous roads mark accident sites where loved ones have perished. Some people might be enraged by the project, believing the work exploits the misfortune of innocent motorists and makes light of their tragedies. Others might note that it could cause accidents by distracting motorists. All of these issues play into the strength of the work to engage the public in the conflicting ideas of the work, which is the ambition of this artist—to bring attention to the highway as problematic and intriguing human conduit, question the status quo assumptions of appropriate uses of technology and information, and engage discussion.

A previous incarnation of LA Interchange was the work AutoGrill Monument, included in the Improbable Monument exhibition at SF Camerawork in 2004 curated by Paula Levine.

Site exploration photographs, Los Angeles, CA, 2007 and CalTrans AS Built plans