Prison Proliferation Audio Video Installation

Artist Paul Rucker's new installation, Proliferation, inspired by the map of U.S. Prison Proliferation, 1900-2000 by PPI's Rose Heyer has just been posted in its full version to his website.

by Peter Wagner, March 25, 2010

Artist Paul Rucker’s new installation, Proliferation, inspired by the map of U.S. Prison Proliferation, 1900-2000 by PPI’s Rose Heyer has just been posted in its full version to his website.

I wrote about prison-based gerrymandering for the liner notes of the in-production DVD version. You can watch the full video online.

CityArts described the piece:

In September, City Arts covered the interdisciplinary show at Cornish College of the Arts that included Paul Rucker’s multimedia work, which often incorporates sound and visual graphing of some sort to get viewers to interact with the work.

His multimedia piece Proliferation, which debuted at that show, tracks the growth of prison systems in the U.S. since the 19th century in a slow progression of animated mapped statistics complemented with a beautiful, though erratic, musical score. The work is a great example of art successfully taking on an activist role — effective, without being heavy-handed.

It made me cry.