The installation "Another Day in Paradise" was composed of three preserved trees: surveillance, video and touchscreen trees. The equipment not contained in the trees themselves was hidden from view in fiberglass rocks. The monitors were embedded in the trees in an attempt to integrate the hardware into natural surroundings. Furthermore a hidden camera was placed inside the trunk of the surveillance tree. Standing in front of the tree, a viewer would see him/herself on the monitor, surveyed, captured and preserved in the preserved tree. This surveillance camera was connected to a videocassette recorder that taped everyone who looked inside the tree. The surveillance tree silently watched the observers/consumers fascinated with their own images. It faced the video and the interactive trees, taping the surrounding activities around the clock.
The video palm tree housed a video monitor displaying images of the Irvine landscape and its generic architecture, images of freeways in Orange County, abandoned development sites and the story of a young Vietnamese man, Vi Vuong. A chair designed as a palm tree stump was placed next to the tree, inviting viewers to sit down and put earphones on. Otherwise, the tree was sir lent and unimposing.
A touchscreen tree was approached as a kiosk with a large monitor. The city of Irvine was reduced to seven computer icons representing paradise, housing, nature, freeways, mall, hero and business.
(Victoria Vesna)