090217 Quick Notes on our Ice Hands.

Our ice hands work is an irreverent urban intervention that creates a modest and surreal moment in the city, both delighting the viewer by figuratively connecting human gestures while also celebrating the oft-perceived 'miserable cold day.'




Our first set of work used the hands in menial gestures sticking out of ordinary objects, either holding mittens, clapping hands or grabbing rope--each offered a 'moment' that subverted the 'seriousness' of the city and suggested a more relaxed, informal and surreal possibility to the city. These ice hands suggested a more narrative city than the one being offered, suggesting relationships between urban environments that are often taken for granted.








Our second set of work began to explore the communicative possibilities of, literally, hands. Using American Sign Language as a basis, we shaped the hands to offer delightful 'puzzles' in the city; that is, one would need to read the hands to read the message. This ranged from the simple message of 'L-O-V-E' around Valentines day, to more pun like possibilities as we signed 'C-H-I-L-L-I-N-G' on one wall and small poems: 'words lost in winter's deafening silence' on others.
The use of signing coupled with the ice hands provides a powerful interface and relationship on the transience of street art, language and the winter season itself.
We find the ice hands a successful series primarily because of their figurative relate-ability(?) to the viewer--that they connect on a human gestural scale.