Auto-Biography (1998)

With Elizabeth Stephens

 Altered Plymouth Voyager van with LED signs, megaphone, slide projector, generator. Collaboration with Elizabeth Stephens.

Auto-Biography was a roving vehicle performance that evolved over the course of the week-long Fringe Festival in Philadelphia. Having decided “this is what Ben would drive were he alive today,” we re-configured a used Plymouth Voyager van as the “Ben Mobile,” complete with portraits, lightening bolts, spectacles, Ben Franklin quotes in paint, pennies, and keys, LED signs, a megaphone, and projection system. For a period each day, we drove the Ben Mobile throughout the Old City neighborhood, reading a segment of his autobiography through a megaphone and inviting people to join us. At night, we broadcast Franklin’s aphorisms with our statistics from the vehicle via LED signs and projections onto the buildings we passed.