You’ve probably all heard the one about the girl who goes into an airport wearing a circuit board attached to some flashing lights and a battery. She also has play-doh. Then she acts surprised when security goes berserk. You know what – airport security will do that. No sense of humour. They’re not comedians — at least not intentionally — and really, they shouldn’t be.
But where this story really picks up is when one hears the girl’s defense. Some cop says: “She said that it was a piece of art and she wanted to stand out on career day. [Mission accomplished.] She claims that it was just art, and that she was proud of the art and she wanted to display it.”
Now, I’m not an art critic but does a circuit board with nine flashing lights qualify as art? I like to think that I have an open mind about these things. Once I even saw a picture of a horse with a horn coming out of its head. I can’t say that I understood, liked or even approved of it, but I’d certainly defend the artist’s right to draw something like that. Seems like the sort of thing some people might find “fun”. Not me. But some people.
But this thing . . . I really don’t know. She’s an MIT student. And this is what she views as an exercise in pure, pointless technological accomplishment. A circuit board. A battery. Nine flashing lights. The scotch tapes adds a nice aesthetic. Furthermore, she was proud of this and wanted to display it. In an airport no less. And it’s well known that airports have all the best art. So either she’s a moron or she thinks everyone else is. Considering that she’s from MIT, both are possible. At the same time even.
