INTERSECTION MAGAZINE, WINTER 2006
HIGHWAY FLOTILLA - LA'S ART CARMADA

Text by Shana Nys Dambrot

Residency projects are usually inspired by what the visiting artist makes of
their temporary home, se when German multimedia artist Sonja Vordermaier
came to LAs MAK Center, it was not so strange that her project would focus
an the city's infamous love/hate relationship with the car.

Inviting 15 local and international artists to participate, Vordermaier organized
an all-day performance event and subsequent exhibition called Carmada.
Participants were told to transform their individual vehicles into mobile art
modules and drive them through the city in a parade, with wildly eclectic results.
Dawn Kasper's 'Truck Garden' saw a cactus garden planted in the back of her
pick up and Vordermaier's own contribution 'Booming Broncmush filled the back
of an SUV with a cave growing fertile and fragrant white mushrooms.

Both artists addressed with varying degrees of hope and cynicism the tenuous
relationship between city streets and the natural world.

Similarly, Michael Markowsky's 'Joshua Tree Driving Painting Project' saw the
artist sitting on his car, legs tucked in through the sunroof, painting a landscape
while the car drove at 75 mph down a lonely desert highway. Video and performance
artist Pascual Sisto designed 'Rainbow Riot', in which he rigged his old Saab to spew