Anti-Pandora II: An Action for Americans, 2009

Action

At approximately 9:39 pm, September 4, 2009 the artist slipped into the administrative offices of The LAB on 16th Street in San Francisco to don gloves, earrings, and back-pack generator, emerging as Anti-Pandora.

Holding a wooden box, Anti-Pandora gathered her forces at the hallway entrance to the gallery, then raced through the art.tech exhibition and audience, searching for the right person to receive her message [Fig. 1] She paused before a woman seated on the floor and said “Do you want to receive my message?” The woman replied “No” and Anti-Pandora turned and raced back through the audience, weaving through the crowd until she stopped in front of a standing man. She said, “Do you want to receive my message?” He replied “Yes” upon which Anti-Pandora opened the wooden box to reveal a folded paper.

The receiver took the paper and unfolded it [Fig. 2]; Anti-Pandora used the flashlight powered by her actions to shine light on the message for sixty seconds. The text, hand-written on The LAB letterhead: See your energy. After illuminating the message for sixty seconds, Anti-Pandora returned to the street and disappeared. It was reported that other audience members pressed around the recipient hoping to see the message but he kept it to himself.