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MEL CHIN: It was after a big [br]museum show, her first museum show,

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that I was in an elevator, going [br]down and the voice says, or asks,

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“Mel, what do you love more [br]than anything in the world?”

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And I said, “Well, I love to make things [br]with my hands. I just love doing that.”

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The other voice says, “okay, stop.”

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And I listened to that voice.

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By stopping I was able to [br]flow free in the world again,

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not being held by some delusional [br]idea of what it meant to be an artist.

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And I felt free to listen to other voices, [br]other ideas that were in the world.

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NEWSCASTER: It happened on Detroit’s [br]East side, the 2100 block of Springell.

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You’re watching one of the most [br]intense fires of this “Devil’s Night.”

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The target—an abandoned home.

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For nearly 2 ½ hours, city firefighters struggled [br]with low water pressure and a roaring blaze.

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CHIN: If you look at the images [br]of burning homes in Detroit,

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if that’s my recollection of it, I have [br]to change that image of that house.

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What could you do with that house? You [br]have no electricity, no water, no money.

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But you have these places decayed [br]by fire or by abandonment.

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As an artist, you go in to [br]see what you can contribute.

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That’s where the “Spawn” idea came around—

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It stands for… a covert activity.

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You take the internal organs of a place,

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and you use it in a whole ‘nother [br]way, rather than just reconstruction.

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MAN: But it’s sad to see something [br]that working and now not working.

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–Can we get up the stairs this way?

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–We’d be better off going up the stairs [br]the front way. This has got a lot of trash.

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CHIN: This project is about [br]transformation on many different levels.

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You’re taking what is considered [br]of no value and of shame and says,

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“No, it has value, but it has [br]another kind of value, another life.”

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Through the idea of conceptual [br]art, we can do this.

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It’s almost like kind of, reclaim it out [br]of the fire. It’s a whole ‘nother idea.

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So it’s a three-year project, [br]maybe two-year project,

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where you actually see a transformation over time.

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–MAN: And the last I know, [br]the basement was flooded.

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–CHIN: Okay, so there is a basement to [br]this? But we got to engineer it correctly.

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So you can work on one half.

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And the whole house can just swing [br]aside and the basement is revealed.

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Take a whole house, put it on a pivot, [br]so the whole house can spin aside.

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And underneath is all this activity [br]in the basement of raising earthworms,

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or fishing worms, Devil’s Night [br]Crawlers that you can sell to

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the large fishing population, [br]-...in a way where it could really help

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transform the vision of [br]Detroit in a very positive way.

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My contribution is twofold— to create [br]something that can be living after I’m gone,

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or I’m not a part of it so it can [br]be returned to the neighborhood.

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And at the same time reclaim an icon [br]from what it has been depicted now as.

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MAN: Yo, man, you think [br]it’s going to happen today?

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MAN 2: I hope so.

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MAN 3: Hey, guy, Gerald’s been here [br]all day. Is it going to happen soon?

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MAN 1: Maybe.

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MAN 4: What you guys doing?

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MAN 2: Well, we’re just waiting for it to happen.

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MAN 4: Come on, guys, you got to make it happen.

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MAN 3: Here we go.

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MAN 2: Gerald, you’re the hardest [br]working man around. How is it today?

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MAN: Man, I am one happy ass. Big fat worms to [br]sort for all those rich people’s delicate roses.

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MAN: Fade in to black.

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CHIN: Making art, I think, is not [br]about one track, not one method,

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but the diversity of mediums [br]and techniques is minor.

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But the diversity of ideas [br]and how they survive and the

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methods they are transmitted is very important.

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“Knowmad” is a video game that you sit down,

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and you drive through 36 tribal [br]carpets that were selected

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based on a mapping of tribes that exist in [br]Turkey, or Anatolia, in Iran and Afghanistan.

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Tribal cultures are dying, as we [br]know, or as we have known them,

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after existing for thousands of years.

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Video game culture is thriving, overtaking [br]Hollywood in terms of how much money it brings in.

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Perhaps in a video game, it can drive [br]you into a place, a curious place,

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where you might ask the question, [br]“Where did these patterns come from?”

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It felt like to have the installation [br]occur with the real tribal rugs

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was a way of allowing peripheral [br]information to float back into your head

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as you would turn away from the game.

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There’s a real world of rugs [br]and people there as well.

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That’s a prayer rug, so we want to make sure [br]it’s pointing in the right direction—east.

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It’s creating a layered environment.

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MAN: Originally, Mel kind of [br]gave us the concept of what to do

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and the whole driving game aspect and stuff.

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Only he really didn’t know what all [br]it was going to entail. Half-way.

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MAN: He gave us specific rugs [br]that he wanted us to use,

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and using software we developed sort [br]of these abstract obstacle courses.

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This gave us an opportunity to [br]just sort of make these abstract,

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colorful, make-believe worlds [br]where there really was no rules

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other than just sort of respect the symbolism

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and the patterns in the carpet and [br]just kind of go crazy from there.

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CHIN: I wanted to limit my influence. Rather [br]than saying, “It has to be this, and this,”

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I said, “Sort of see this, but you [br]do not have to be held to that.”

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Because if we’re going to make [br]art, it should be liberating.

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My thoughts in the objects I [br]make or have made have been a

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collection of ideas that have [br]come from others as well.

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Part of the art is creating the [br]form for the new invention to occur.

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Knowmad is a digital re-weave of patterns [br]that have been around for thousands of years

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that we may know nothing about.

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But perhaps in a video game, [br]we might have that, again,

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the desire to respect what they might [br]have been, more than just decoration.

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Because they are about people.

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“Revival field” is a simple sculpture [br]that has this poetic premise.

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In Michaelangelo’s days, he [br]would have a block of marble,

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and he would have an image in his [br]mind, incredible images in his mind,[br]

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and he would take the chisel and carve away [br]until we see something as remarkable as “David.”

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In our contemporary times, [br]our materials have changed.

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Our materials are still [br]marble, but they also can be…

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stuff that we’ve never dreamed of using.

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In this case, toxic earth.

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It is the sculpturing of an [br]ecology from one near death,

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or one that is decayed or [br]dead, into one that is living.

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NARRATOR: The diversity of life has [br]been deeply affected by industry.

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The smelting of metals, such as zinc, cadmium, [br]lead, and copper, produces particulates,

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sometimes invisible to the eye, [br]which contaminate the environment.

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These metal particulates weaken [br]and destroy many forms of life.

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Long after the smelting is complete, [br]pollution remains in the soil.

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There have been no viable [br]solutions to this problem,

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until the “Revival Field'' project, [br]which proved an existing theory.

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Special plants called hyperaccumulators [br]are introduced into the barren landscape.

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The metal in the soil would kill most plants,

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but the hyperaccumulators thrive, pulling [br]the metals into their stems and shoots.

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When the plants mature, they are harvested.

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The plants are then burned in reclaiming furnaces.

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This process yields metal purer than [br]high-grade ore, which can be resold.

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The continuation of this process cleans the soil [br]and allows life to return to the environment.

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This renewed ecology is the [br]completion of a work of art.

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CHIN: I don’t go about trying to make [br]a science/art project or anything,

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or political project. I think it has [br]to be driven by some kind of poetry.

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That poetry of plants having the capacity [br]to transform a system was amazing enough,

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and it was also driven by pragmatism.

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I think you have to have both. It has [br]a little red cast in it, at the base.

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But I don’t know if that is…

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In this world, there are cultures [br]dying… and some cultures thriving.

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There are soils that are dead that can [br]be reborn with the help of a work of art.

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There are neighborhoods, they tell us, that [br]are dying… but instead they are inspiring.

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We assume that we are living [br]in a culture of consumption…

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that tells us what to eat and what to dear.

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But it’s not all that. Art for the 21st [br]century is the same as it’s always been—

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it is never the same.

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MAN:

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You know, normally I like to use artificial.

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But if I’m going after that big lunker, or that [br]ornery wall-eyed pike up here in the great lake,

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I like to use the biggest, [br]baddest worm of them all—

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Devil’s Nightcrawlers, direct from Detroit City.

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These worms will drive you crazy [br]with all the fish you gonna catch.

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See what I mean? Devil’s [br]Nightcrawlers, the Motown worm.

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Guaranteed to catch you mo’ fish, give [br]you mo’ action than any worm around.

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Devil’s Nightcrawlers, [br]home-grown in East Side Detroit.