In these times of post-9/11 hysteria, there is a real possibility that the general public, ignorant of your artistic intent, will believe your innocent activity to be some sort of terrorist act. In effect, any abnormal behavior is looked upon with great suspicion.

On December 22, 2006, someone spilled a tiny amount of mercury onto a subway platform in Los Angeles. The man then jumped to his feet, searched for and located an MTA intercom, on which officials say he called an operator. According to law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation, the man told the operator: "I spilled mercury."

This act was harmless (the mercury was not dangerous unless someone got down on their hands and knees to drink it) and yet terrorism experts were contacted and described the act as "troubling" because it took transit authorities over eight hours to even notice that something had happened. Was it a dangerous terrorist act? Obviously not. Was it art? Who can say? "

It's unnerving, a wake-up call," said USC professor James Moore, an expert in transportation and a researcher with USC's Terrorism Center.

In January, 2007, as part of a guerilla marketing campaign, two men working for the Cartoon Network were arrested for a so-called "hoax" involving simple Lite-Brite signs installed in public places in Boston, Massachusetts. Only an idiot would think the signs were bombs, and yet this is exactly what happened. The police declared a Code Red emergency, shut down the entire town, and bomb squads were called in to remove the suspicious signs which had been installed in several public places. Never mind that these signs had been placed in nine other major cities around the country and had been in place for weeks without a single complaint. Boston was afraid of these things.

People just don't know what to think any more. As an artist, you have to be careful what you do. Government fear-mongering is making the whole country nervous.

I tried taking photographs inside a shopping mall about a year ago. I was just taking photographs of anything that caught my eye. After taking a few photos, I was approached by a security person who told me it was against their policy to take photographs inside the mall. In their view, simply taking a photo was suspicious activity.

What would people in today's world think of Chris Burden's piece he performed in 1973 titled 747? For this piece, Burden stood outside and fired a pistol at a passing airliner. Surely, he would be sent to prison if he did the same thing today. And what about Robert Berry's Inert Gas Series in which he released vials of inert gases at various sites around Los Angeles? Surely he would be rounded up and interrogated if he attempted the same thing in 2007.

It's a new world. Though we pretend to live in a free society, the society we live in is not nearly as free as we think. Simple artistic activity can lead to suspicion. Even to arrest.

Dave Scott
March 5, 2007