I always noticed these pieces of track running through the middle of the street. You see them mostly in downtown LA, on the east side of town, or the south side of town. Some of them run for miles, and some just a few feet, covered up with asphalt and various construction projects. I found out that they were part of the old Red Car electric trolly lines that ran throughout most of LA. We actually had an efficient railway system at one time which helped communities grow along side the railway locations.

The Pacific Electric Railway main company depot at Sixth Street and Main St

My ideas for this project have taken many evolutions, from a performance piece (riding along the tracks in an old railway handcar), to a series of photographs and I eventually stuck with the idea of casting an actual section of track. Why you ask? Well for many reasons... I wanted to create my own sort of archeological dig, the reference to the la brea tar pits come to mind, or if anyone has hiked in the San Gabriel mountains, a reference to the historical markers and artifacts left from the Mt. Lowe railway at the turn of the century.

http://www.mountlowe.org

And also, the piece to me is a personal memorial to the work that my grandfather did for the Union Pacific Railroad. The railroad was instrumental in bridging the east and west coasts, providing easy and fast transportaion for people, as well as goods, the western takeover in part by Manifest Destiny and the demise of the great plains Native American cultures to name a few tidbits.

I've always been very interested in the ghost of history, revealing the hidden and honoring the seemingly mundane, negotiation the spaces between what our perceptions of reality and hyperreality are, the way we monumentalize death and life, the shift in our collective consciousness when new areas of travel are revealed, or new technological feats are accomplished... that would probably sum it all up.