Naming Others: Manufacturing Yourself

Robert Peters and Mushroom Pickers, Ghosts, Frogs and other "Others" designed a project for "Culture in Action," a Chicago based grouping of public art, called Naming Others: Manufacturing Yourself. Culture in Action brought about a reversal of what many considered public art by truly incorporating the audience in the artwork itself by either making them the subject of the art, or having them be the producers of it.

These "issue-specific artworks are a form of artmaking that grows out of the desire of artists to reach audiences in ways that are more direct and unexpected than is possible in a museum or gallery setting." In other words, it took the emphasis off site-specificity and placed it rather on audience-specific concerns. Ironically, Naming Others: Manufacturing Yourself has no site at all. This piece of public art is produced by having the public call a toll-free telephone number in which they can then choose subcategories such as race, sex, gender, occupation, etc. to hear derogatory slang that pertains to each category. The artwork was designed to force local Chicagoans to confront their prejudices by first having them complete a survey by writing down as many slang terms that they have heard pertaining to each subclass that would then be incorporated into the list of slang presented in the telephone number.

Peters decided to do this project because he believed that no matter how unpleasant these terms might be, they are still a large part of the Chicago culture.