Tyler Fisher

Given the opportunity to create a site-specific installation for an evening art exhibition, I sought to create a performative piece that built upon the location’s history while pushing myself, my materials, and my audience to the brink. As a sort of logic puzzle, I composed an absurdist piece that, in seeking to complete its desired result, would be forced to self-destruct. 

A ladder form was chosen, with the coloration and scale being appropriated from the surrounding environment. As the sun set, the need for additional lighting suddenly became apparent, and my ladder, with its rungs made of fluorescent tubes, was made to fulfill this task. Ballasts had been wired in a series, symmetrically positioned, allowing one half to be activated from below; however, the rungs must be climbed for the other lights to be engaged. 

With each fluorescent tube being made of an incredibly thin bubble of glass and filled with toxic mercury gas, one would assume that by placing body weight upon each rung, the light ladder would be destroyed. Despite this, many of the rungs remained intact as the ladder withstood the weight of the performer reaching the top to plug in the other series of bulbs. For a brief moment, the audience was fully illuminated before the lights were destroyed by their creator in a final curtain call. 

This flirtation with futility is what truly excites me as a creator. This piece provided an audience with an exhilarating display of intrigue, invention, and ineffectuality.

"I Chose the Ladder." 2015. Tyler Fisher.
Wood, Wiring, Fluorescent Bulbs, Performer.