MOM PUTT PUTT
- Simone White
- Department of English, Kelly Writers House, School of Arts & Sciences
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Independent Creative Production Grant
In this artwork by Simone White, a mechanized vehicle runs a timed route through a visually and poetically dramatized Los Angeles. White’s poem “City of” is a discursive element of MOM PUTT PUTT, which is the poet/scholar’s first visual artwork. MOM PUTT PUTT consists of a miniature Mercedes vehicle that will travel on track in a loop, much like a model train, and be situated on a platform, roughly built out with topological features modeled from GIS imaging. The geography and highway infrastructure of the Los Angeles surround, fabricated from simple materials is not realistic; it is a minimalist rendering that ought to create disharmony and anxiety in contrast with the visual specificity and temporal exactitude of MOM’s movement. MOM’s circuit describes a dolorous decline, a new and specific grief, invoking an extinguished horizon for American movement, always historically linked to the horizon of black politics and social movement. MOM PUTT PUTT references and draws inspiration from Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, Mike Davis’ City of Quartz, Mike Kelley’s Educational Complex, The Price is Right mountain climber game, and Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.