Daniel Peltz & Crossing Non-Signalized Locations

Daniel Peltz (Associate Professor, Film/Animation/Video) collaborated with the staff of the Cambridge, Massachusetts Department of Traffic, Parking, and Transportation  on “Crossing Non-Signalized Locations” a series of non-regulatory parking regulations.  Work from the project is included in the exhibit  Of, By, and For: New Work by Daniel Peltz and Paul Notzold, curated by Liz K. Sheehan for the Cambridge Arts Council Gallery, which will be on view September 7 – November 17, 2010. To read more about the project click here to visit the Council’s website

From Peltz’s public letter to Cambridge citizens about the project:

“Dear City,

I’m writing to notify you of a series of new parking regulations going into effect shortly in Cambridge. When invited to propose a public art work for the City of Cambridge, by the Cambridge Arts Council, I proposed a residency with the Department of Traffic, Parking and Transportation [TPT]. I was drawn to parking, as a subject matter and site, when I was doing an artist residency in the southern Swedish town of Malmö, where a series of attacks on parking control officers had occurred. The city’s official response was a publicity campaign aimed at “improving the image of the parking enforcement office.” It struck me that there was something being played out in our relationship to parking enforcement that deserved a deeper examination and I began walking with the parking officers. Something about this low-level confrontation with state authority – that is to say a confrontation with minimal real-world consequences – activates a disproportionately intense set of emotions and behaviors. It occurred to me that somehow parking disputes created a safe space for a public to work out a wide expressive range of responses to state authority. There are many reasons to be grateful for the opportunity a parking citation presents.