amazing. It just doesn’ t have the same feel of wild chaos that it did in the’ 90s. I think part of that is not just the city, but as a culture we surveil ourselves through social media and through cameras and that type of sharing so it’ s a little harder to have those underground spaces without alerting authorities. We have a friend who puts on cool events and he asked if we had any ideas and we were thinking about mini golf in the river. He said we can’ t have drunk people in the river, which makes sense, but that just shows the difference in now versus then. As things get more established and they get funding from official sources, there’ s more liability. So it’ s great that we have these art spaces but it’ s a little more guardrailed for us artists who like to do more dangerous pieces.
I read that there may be a full-length feature film being made from the documentary. Is this news to you? SMITH: We’ ve heard those rumors and we’ ve talked to people who are interested. It’ s hard to tell what level of interest that is and if they’ re going to be able to scrape together the funding and the writer. Until there’ s a script we’ re not going to get excited.
What is your dream Tape Art project? SMITH: The biggest one that can’ t happen is the Hoover Dam. You could draw the biggest thing, and it would still look tiny on that massive wall. There’ s also the Walmart tour, which is a crazy idea where we would literally drive cross-country for one year and go from one Walmart to the next creating Tape Art. They have huge walls, and in the rural communities that’ s it for big buildings, so we could cover local folklore on these commercial walls that all look the same. It’ s us trying to reflect the local back up onto corporate. TOWNSEND: The Hoover Dam is the fantasy of fantasies. It’ s a tough one because the mission of Tape Art is so oriented toward getting the widest range. We just did a project in Brattleboro, Vermont, that scratched a dream Tape Art itch. It was so good visually and socially because we worked with 1,500 people in nine days. tapeart. com
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 🆁
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