Duchamp on the Great South Road

The notoriously grumpy blogger Russell Fletcher, aka Redbaiter, has demanded that I be prosecuted for an offence against public decency. Redbaiter is upset that I made a toilet stop against the pile of stones known to neo-Nazi conspiracy theorists as the Bombay Obelisk last Friday. Here is the message that Red has splattered over the internet:

Scott Hamilton should be charged with urinating in public. Any police reading this please take action. Or are sycophantic supporters of govt racist propaganda outlets immune from the laws that apply to most NZ citizens?

If Redbaiter manages to put me in the dock, then I intend to defend my action as a piece of performance art. I shall urge the judge and jury to consider the fact that one of the most famous artworks of the twentieth century, Marcel Duchamp's Fountain, celebrates micturition. I might also discuss Jackson Pollock's drip paintings, and James Joyce's stream of consciousness technique.

I'm not sure whether Redbaiter is responsible or not, but the geocaches Paul Janman and I placed close to Great South Road landmarks like the Obelisk have been visited repeatedly over the past forty-eight hours. I'm looking forward to discovering what visitors have left, in exchange for the maps, photos, old texts, toy soldiers and other stuff we stashed, and what messages they have written in our cache logbooks. Directions to the caches are available here (scroll down the page to the map, and click on the red triangles).

Our geocaches are a contribution to the A Sense of Place exhibition, which is being held at the Papakura Art Gallery until June the 10th. Radio New Zealand has done excellent interviews with two of the other participants in A Sense of Place. 

[Posted by Scott Hamilton]