Crude Events

Live Internet-streamed stock quotes of dozens of oil companies slide across the top of a web page projected on a wall. Below this there runs the live BBC news ticker, the Dow Jones news page, and CNN's latest "Showdown Iraq" story. 

Referring to the web projection, I shot paintballs from a paintball gun at large raw canvases to create graphs of the fluctuating price of crude oil during a politically charged week (January 27-31, 2003) in the build up to the US-led War in Iraq.

On January 27: UN Chief Weapons Inspector Dr. Hans Blix delivered his report to the UN. Stock markets around the world fell.

On January 28: US President George W. Bush delivered a State of the Union address. The world watched and oil priced rose.

January 29-31: the days after - political pundits, scholars and journalists dissect Bush's speech. Stock markets are volatile and the price of oil continues to rise.