Don't Tase Me Bro!!

Something I’ve been following for a few years now is the increased usage of Tasers by police officers against unarmed, and at times totally innocent civilians. This disturbing trend has lead to deaths. This story involved a police officer killing an unarmed, mentally ill man with a taser, who goes on to kill himself.

People are being tasered at traffic stops. In University Libraries, and political forums.

Though some of these events have had consequences for the authorities, in general they don’t. Unfortunately this is a DAILY event, all over the country, and authorities are protected by the Patriot Act.

The implications are terrifying to our personal safety and civil rights. Should we really have to fear a taser to the gut if we disagree with a police officer at a traffic stop?

There are a few ways we could react to this issue. One, though dangerous, could be to hack, or modify a taser for some subversive purpose. Obviously we would have to do a lot of research to know what we were doing, but I like the concept hypothetically.

It could go a lot of different ways. What do you guys think?

Issue_01

Untitled from Christopher O'Leary on Vimeo.

The first in my thesis series entitled Giant-Sized Issues

Levitation

New Work

Some stuff I've been working on - These are video Stills

Scarlett

Some work I made in late 2006 that I recently uploaded to Vimeo. Soon, I'll expand this series of portraits of female movie heroines.

Scarlett from Christopher O'Leary on Vimeo.

The Milky Way From Maui

It is funny how much of the universe you can see when you're on a rock in the middle of the ocean.

Light Play on Maui

Maui Continued...

Here are a couple shots from the trip, but to see a whole slide show please visit my flickr page!

VIEW FLICKR SLIDESHOW HERE

Storm Front

More of Xarene's Work

Tentative Architectures in Maui (aka Other Earth)

I recently spent a week on Maui shooting Xarene Eskandar's MFA thesis project which she calls "tentative architecture". These are some of my favorites from our hard work.

Apparently people still read this blog...

So I've decided to revive it. I'm currently a month away from my MFA thesis show, but that won't stop me! So, I'll try to update when I can. Coming soon - more travel with Xarene in Maui!

It absolutely poured rain!!!

The Opening Party was rocking until....

My Birthday Dinner

These guys were so sweet. Jacob and Pinar bought me a copy of the Biennial Catalog. Evrim, Itamar, Martina, and Cigdem - thanks for the lovely dinner! Itamar later took me to some crazy electronic club where we danced with the drugged out hipster turks. It was great fun. We didn't get back until after 5 and I didn't get up all day the next day.

Istanbul Biennial Opening Ceremony

Not enough food. SO many people. The press passes got us everywhere.