Photo by Tod Seelie
The project is self-inculcated with mystery. Assumably Eva Mattes from 0100101110101101.ORG got loaded at a bar in Barcelona, only to be absorbed in a discussion with machine artist Ryan C. Doyle over a joint obsession with “Stalker”, decided to go “The Zone” (“..of alienation”, an area the size of Switzerland surrounding the former nuclear plant, uninhabitable for the coming 300 years, scavenged for profitable scrap metal, frequently visited by tourists of catastrophy) in Chernobyl together with Frank Mattes, filmmaker Todd Chandler, photographer Tod Seelie, Jeff Stark and fabricator Steve Valdez. Later, at the Abandon Normal Devices festival in Manchester (2010), “a rusty, soviet-style sculpture, created with contaminated materials scavenged from the site of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, appeared overnight in one of Manchester’s public parks”. Plan C, in their own words:
Clue 1: The Zone
The story is not clear at all, and it will probably never be. But in the Summer 2010 a group of six people, who barely knew each other, met in an anonymous apartment in the suburbs of Kyev, Ukraine. They came from different parts of Europe and the US, and they had an appointment. Nobody knew about their final destination, nobody knew about Plan C. They told friends vague stories about “entering The Zone” and “throwing metal nuts”. They had one thing in common: an obsession for Tarkovsky’s 1979 movie Stalker. On August 10th the Chernobyl Zone of Alienation Administration – responsible for the protection of the highly radioactive area – issued authorization to six US and European citizens to enter the Zone.
Video by Todd Chandler
Clue 2: The Park
Once in the Zone, they threw metal nuts. Maybe in search of an answer, they ventured into the abandoned amusement park of the ghost town of Pripyat. Finally the group located what they were hoping to find, the Red Ride. They picked through the irradiated remains. One of them got contaminated.
Photo by Tod Seelie
Clue 3: The Ride
Before they departed, a rural tractor left the Zone, leading west. A month later a load of scrap metal was sitting in an anonymous warehouse under the railroad in Manchester, UK. The group moved into the warehouse and started secretly working day and night on The Liquidator. After two weeks The Liquidator is ready. The strange interactive sculpture was installed overnight in Manchester’s Whitworth Park.
Photo by Tod Seelie
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