One of the unexpected challenges we faced when creating the original Ziggurati installation in 2013 was that people were very interested to learn more about the camp, the art pieces, and the symbols and designs that we used.  In 2013, I lost my voice midway through the week, and so in an effort to give my vocal cords a break as well as share more information about the project we created a series of Info Signs that were displayed out in front of the camp.

We started with our camp's "standard disclaimer" as a bit of fun, and then move on to our background info.

Next, we wanted to provide translations for some of the symbols that can be found on various parts of the installation.  We added a number of additional translations for 2015, some of which may wind up being used in new pieces.  Others are purely for entertainment and educational purposes.  It is actually cuneiform translation (and was not very easy to figure out), though I used artistic license to use left to right alignment (as opposed to the vertical alignment found on most ancient clay tablets).

The 'land yacht' translation is a reference to the land yacht mutant vehicle, which will be a part of our camp this year.  The 'conduit shade structure' translation was a sort of happy discovery (after stumbling across the word for conduit), we included it as a bit of fun since the majority of our camp's structures use an EMT conduit framework.

As we've been reading and researching ancient Sumer over the last several years, we've been learning that a number of modern ideas and technologies came from that civilization.  We thought it would be both fun and informative to list them, and I was surprised last year to see how many people were either unwilling or unable to believe we weren't just making that up.

The Info Signs turned out to be a big hit.  Not only did I make it through the event without losing my voice, but visitors and guests were able to find out more information and learn a thing or two at any time of day or night, regardless of whether someone with answers was at camp (or awake).  We updated a couple signs following the 2014 event, and have already added a number of additional signs for 2015.

 

Location: San Francisco, California
Year: 2014-2015
Status: Completed