Project George

The High Street Project, Christchurch, New Zealand 1998

I was interested in trialing a reversed process where an impending live event was treated as something that had already happened. The project became a ‘noir’ investigation into how a group of secretive individuals could make something happen by trying to establish what had happened. A bit like reading a crime novel from the end to the beginning without knowing that you are.

My principle agents of confusion were Marcia Farquhar, Dorian Mcfarland, Stuart Mayes, Jem Finer, Thierry Malard and Moritz Weidemann. None of the six were aware of the others’ complicity. Each mounted their own investigation into the facts. The story was more complex than anybody had initially realised and seemed to lead back to Christchurch, New Zealand.

By the time I arrived in New Zealand the investigation’s reach had extended in multiple directions and was now a global network of agents and information.

I created an office and hired a secretary for the three weeks in which things were happening. We set up a briefing room and all members of the public were interviewed and fully briefed on the facts as they unfolded.

To this day I still do not have a clear idea of what happened or who was involved.

The Jamaicans were in on it as well as a deviant British stalker. The Ministry of Agriculture searched the premises and confiscated a collection of parcels containing grass seeds just before a cubic meter of dirt was dumped in the middle of the office. An representative of anonymous French organisation demanded we comply with instructions to deliver all information to him while wearing a red suit with frog feet. A dance party that was to take place in the office was organised and promoted from Germany without our knowledge and whole streets in the suburbs were placed under surveillance, letter-bombed and told to register complaints at the office.

The night before the last day the Project George office was broken into and trashed by unknown individuals. They scrawled ‘it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye’ in red spray paint across one wall.