I chose to create and display this piece on top of my car, not out of frustration or disagreement with the individual troops that have found themselves in the predicament overseas, but to criticize those of us still at home. I found it fascinating that in a time of strife and paranoia, we crawled further into our own personal worlds than ever before. The idea of support for one another has transformed from the personal to the generic. The most common form of support for the war in Iraq revolved around magnetic ribbons. They were placed on the back of a vehicle ordering others to Support Our Troops. Conveniently, they were magnets; so the owner of the object could remove and place it at will, depending on various situations that could occur in our countrys climate. Sixty years ago, support meant tire drives, food rationing, and complete career overhauls. It now means displaying an impermanent object ordering others to do the supporting for you. By creating a life-size, 12-foot B-61 Nuclear Missile out of 500 of these magnets, I was hoping to demonstrate the absurdity of what we call support in this day of passive and selfish demonstration.
Footage of the missile car was taken by Matthew Sienkiewicz, while it drove around Madison, WI in the summer of 2006.