Proposal: Adult Tickets

Ben Ewen-Campen & Pennie Taylor

Describe your idea.
In an illogical attempt to reduce the frustration felt by parking ticket recipients, the city of Cambridge has started including yoga exercises on the ticket envelope. it goes without saying that this is condescending and infuriating.

It is time to break the web of unhappy associations that emanate from each parking ticket we receive. What better way to do so than to create a series of erotic photographs in which Cambridge and somerville parking tickets are flanked by the fully unclothed bodies of diverse members of our community. The photos not be safe for work, but we’re all grown-ups, right? They’ll be funny and hot, they will not be tasteful at all, and they won’t be creepy—just beautiful naked guys and girls with parking tickets. They will be just what the doctor ordered. They will be shot on color film, with a flash.

Since it wouldn’t be “legal” to leave these photos on the windshield of every car we see with a parking ticket on it, we propose to help submerge this parking ticket-themed pornography into our collective subconscious through an art show and smut give-away. The approximately 10 filthy images will be displayed in a small gallery spot, and will be available as a free photocopied zine to those who attend the opening of this show.

These zines will spread like happy vines. in addition, we will use the internet to invite everybody around to make their own funny parking-ticket themed art (erotic or non-erotic (aka boring)) to hang up in the same gallery.

To anybody who has seen these smutty pictures or made their own, their next parking ticket (which they’ll probably get outside the art show if it’s held in somerville) will conjure not just anger but also hopefully some cooler feelings. These feelings will then be transferred to that person’s next interlocuter, and onwards. and thus, through smut, the net weight of unhappiness in the world will be diminished by one ounce.

How will you use your grant?
This project is simple and cheap: get a lot of parking tickets (which we’re great at) and then make 10 naked photos (we’re well-qualified), then advertise the show on the internet to get lots of other folks to make parking ticket-related art.

12 rolls of Kodak color film ($38.20); film processing ($108); printing 10 prints for the show ($50); printing 250 zines online ($140); refreshments for the opening ($100).

Total: $436.20. And that’s flexible.

What is the expected status of your project by the time of the next Feast?
The smut will be generated and ready to display in a gallery.