ARTIST CREATES NEW STREET GAME "CARRY ME BACK" FOR COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GAME SHOW.

INTERACTIVE GAME PLAYS WITH LIFE-SIZE PIECES ON THE SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK

 
 New York City, New York – (Date) – On May 14, 2011, three New Yorkers from the distant and recent past will be returning to the streets of Manhattan to visit their old haunts in a new game called "CARRY ME BACK" designed by artist Jim Pallas. 

  America's answer to Mozart,Thelonious Monk, Saul Steinberg, who a drew  "View of the World as Seen From 9th Avenue," and  a Lenni Lenape, a woman of the Native American tribe that saw Giovanni da Verrazano sail along the coast in 1524,are all board pieces in a game that will be played out in the streets of New York. 

 Columbia University asked Jim Pallas, a pioneer of electronic art, to design a game that would take the action out of the University’s Macy Gallery and onto the city's streets.  The project is a part of Game Show NYC, an exhibit of artist-designed games.

 
 Mr. Pallas came up with an ingenious plan for abandoning light-weight, life size plywood cut-out portraits of these historic figures in public places while motivating passers-by to pick them up and carry them to various destinations that would hold special meaning for each of the figures.   
 
 For instance, one of the destinations that Thelonius Monk is expected to visit is his former residence on the west side.  Mr. Steinberg will visit one of his inspirational monuments, the Statue of Liberty, and the Lenape woman will spend some quiet time in Chelsea Park near the Lenape Edible Garden downtown. 
 
 What would motivate strangers to carry these artworks to these places, then leave them there for someone else to find and carry to another destination?
 Money.  By doing so, they will qualify for a share in any profits earned from theindividual artworks  when and if it's sold. 
 
 How will people who want to participate in this peripatetic game find one of these artworks in the vastness of the city?  Each is equipped with a device that reveals its location on a map placed on a public web page (jpallas.com/carrymeback).  On this page, anyone can watch the movement
 of the pieces as they are carried and left at one of their six destinations.  Anyone can be a player/participant by going to the destination and carrying the piece to the next designated destination. 
 
 "I know it sounds crazy," says Pallas, a seventy-year-old artist who has exhibited internationally. "It doesn't seem like it would work, but I've been making and abandoning these "hitch hikers"since 1981.    In 2006, I set five of them out, heading for various destinations in the Silicon Valley.
 One was set out on the east coast at M.I.T.  Four made it to their destinations in San Jose and are at the Tech Museum there.  One went missing near a pig farm in Iowa." 
 
 Pallas says he creates these ‘hitch hikers’ for the stories they  generate.  "People are encouraged to take them on little adventures.  They have some fun and put them in amusing situations.  Send me emails and photos which I post"
 
 Monk, Steinberg and Lenni will be set out  somewhere in Manhattan on May 14, and their travels can be tracked on the web pag,  jpallas.com/carrymeback
 
 The _Game Show NYC_ exhibit opens May 16 and runs until June 3, at the Macy Gallery at Columbia University’s Teacher’s College, in conjunction with "Creativity, Play, and the Imagination across Disciplines", a three-day conference on games at Columbia University. The exhibition will include a gallery reception on May 27.  

For more info contact Tamika Jackson at (810) 622 0106.  [LINK: mailto:tamika@detroitartworks.org]