Alien Toy UCO (Unidentified Crusing Object)

For inSITE97 Rubén Ortiz Torres collaborated with Salvador "Chava" Munoz to construct "Alien Toy UCO (Unidentified Cruising Object)/La ranfla cosmica ORNI (Objeto rodante no identificado)," a lowrider car that was converted into a dancing hydraulics wonder in the form of a Border Patrol vehicle. Chava, a world champion in radical bed dancing, reworked each section of the car to move and spin on its own set of hydraulics and arms. Ortiz Torres produced a film with alien imagery and clips of the car in action to accompany the installation. Ortiz Torres stated that the car was a product of cultural migration and exchange, a visual manifestation of the cultural hybridization in Southern California. --inSITE97

• 1997

• Reo, Sharon A. (photographer)

• Ortiz Torres, Rubén (Mexican painter and installation artist, born 1964)

• InSITE97

This image is a scan of a 35mm color slide from the InSite Archive (MSS 707, Box 310, Folder 03, Item 259)

Barrio Logan (San Diego, Calif.)

automobiles; hydraulics

http://www.track16.com/exhibitions/ruben/ruben.html

• InSITE97

• Mexican-American border region

• Installations (visual works)
• Sculpture (visual work)

• Automobiles
• Border art
• Boundaries
• Humor
• Performance art
• Political art
• Popular culture
• Unidentified flying objects
• Video art

• image

Shared Shelf: 16715540

Online finding aid

• inSite Archive

Film, Audio, Video and Digital Art

Sculpture and Installations

[Title, Date]. InSite Archive. MSS 707. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.

Unknown (US)

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2020-10-26