The idea came to me while I was looking for a way to make slides out of my digital images. The inkjet film I used made horrible slides, but the images were sort of fun. Then I had the idea of hanging these transparent tags around in the city. The crosswalk signs seemed to be ideal spots. They were accessable and people look at them often. I went out late one Saturday night in the early autumn. It had been a while since I had been out at 5am, waiting for the subway on an empty platform, walking in the quiet streets. A block from the first place I hung a tag, a huge white SUV was parked, humming with muffled hip hop. I felt elation when that first tag fluttered in the wind. I felt a connection with the city that had been missing for years. I moved through Soho as the day grew lighter. It was a cloudy morning when I finished. A couple kissed goodbye as the woman got in a cab. I wondered if he would ever call her.





This was my first tag.

Then I wanted to hang one near a building on Wooster St. that is covered in street art. But there weren't any crosswalk signs. So I hung the tag on the building gate.





This tag disappeared pretty quickly.

Some other tags:




Focusing on the small tags made me realize that the city's background is composed of layers of images. The tags become another layer.

I placed a tag near the wonderful building on Spring and Elizabeth where so many artists post their work. Someone hung a cardboard tag next to mine and for a few days they danced together.


Then they both disappeared. In fact, after about five days, all the tags vanished at once. It was as if someone had found one and then hunted down all the others.

There was a tag that remained. The wind had blown it up against the sign and I guess it was too much work to pull down.



This one stayed for months, it's images slowly fading. And then one day it was gone too.