Flash Crash was a collaborative installation and performance involving a large conical dirt pit installed in a small gallery space. The pit was isolated by white walls on three sides, with the fourth side closed in with a with a four foot wall over which the entirety of the dirt construction could be viewed. The dirt cone itself was constructed from adobe mud bricks coated with a smooth surface of mud, which was allowed to crack as it dried naturally. This earthwork, which was a sculpture in its own right, was also a stage for a performance using 1/10-scale radio controlled cars. The earthwork was made to become a racetrack. During the opening reception viewers were invited to purchase refreshments served by a hired hot dog vendor who was working in the space, and then squeeze into an adjoining room containing the dirt track. Some people were able to get a close-up view near the edge of the dirt arena, and others stood on wooden risers at the back of the crowd. My collaborator at the time, Ian Williams, and I, wearing dirty coveralls, walked into the space and climbed a ladder into a wooden loft directly above the crowd. A man in a tuxedo shirt and bow tie, who we referred to as Mr. Agnew the Chief Steward, followed us, carrying a pair of very fast electric racecars covered in gold leaf, much like a waiter carrying plates of gourmet food. The cars were switched on, and after their motors were revved above the heads of the onlookers, they were tossed onto the dirt. The cars were driven around the track at full speed to the thrill of the crowd.

I am requesting funding to create a large public sculpture and performance based on a previous body of work. The subjects explored in this work range from explorations of relationships between art and non-art practices to details expressing metaphoric expressions of loss and gain of energy, atomic particle behavior, and performance as spectacle. This new proposed work is a direct continuation of a body of work, which I have produced that subjects traditional sculptural practices to the rigors of profane cultural systems that, under normal circumstances, would be in conflict with fine arts ideals. This is achieved by creating an autonomous sculpture, which then becomes a stage or character in a performance. The subject that is performed denatures the sculpture and assigns it a new and enriched set of properties. The performance and the sculpture where the performance occurs share equal portions of the artistic value of the work as a whole. In this body of work I previously attempted to practically meet these conceptual goals by using a large indoor earthwork sculpture as a track for racing electric model cars in front of an art audience. The work was at once an art object and a racetrack, with neither one devaluing the other. This work, entitled "Flash Crash", took its name from a phenomenon of particle physics in which an electron emits energy in the form of light and then descends toward a center marked by the magnetic forces found in the proton. The racetrack becomes gravitational force and the model car becomes an electron flashing off electrical energy in the form of motion, in the form of a race. The cars are covered in gold leaf to allude to art historical gilded frames, Rutherford's diffraction experiments, or the gold ions used in the RHIC particle accelerator at Brookhaven Labs. In order to further these ideas I propose the construction of a large and completely portable racetrack/sculpture that can travel much like a carnival ride, allowing the work to fully exploit its public art potential. The sculpture will be executed in welded and machined steel, taking the form of a cone shaped dish. The track surface will be constructed from curved panels of fine screen expanded steel sheet framed with square tubing and sprayed with a rubberizer to insure adequate traction. Each panel will be 18 ft. in height, and will bolt together to form the transparent track, which will be buttressed by steel struts where each segment is joined. Spectators will be provided with bleachers, but will also be encouraged to walk under the structure to experience the race from underneath the angled road surface. Refreshments and hot dogs will be sold by a contracted vendor, and race related merchandise will be distributed as part of the performance.