One Flew Over the Void (Bala perdida): human cannonball David Smith mid-flight as he is shot from a cannon and across border fence

Building on a collaborative process that is evident throughout his artistic practice, Javier Téllez's project "One Flew Over the Void (Bala perdida)" involved a sustained engagement with psychiatric patients from the Baja California Mental Health Center in Mexicali to co-create a public event and to document its evolution and final performance. Inspired by the traditional "human cannonball" circus performer, Téllez explored the notion of spatial and mental borders in the context of Tijuana and San Diego, and developed an event that involves sending a "human cannonball" across the border between Mexico and the United States. Through successive creative workshops and exchanges the world's most famous human cannonball, Dave Smith, the psychiatric patients and Téllez collectively devised the backdrop, music, costumes, and radio and television announcements for the event. The performance occurred on August 27 at the site where the Mexico/US border fence disappears into the sea between Playas de Tijuana and Border Field State Park. Finally, Téllez created a video documenting the process and the event. --inSite_05

• August 27, 2005

• Téllez, Javier (Venezuelan video artist, born 1969)

• InSite_05

• Ragasol, Tania (Mexican art historian and curator)

This image was extracted from a DVD-R from the InSite Archive (MSS 707, Box 198, DVD 01)

Imperial Beach, San Diego, California, United States

Tijuana (Baja California, Mexico)

Tijuana, Playas de, Baja California Norte, Mexico

• InSite_05

• Mexican-American border region

• Fences
• Installations (visual works)
• Public art
• Sculpture (visual work)

• Adventure and adventurers
• Audiences
• Border art
• Boundaries
• Cannons (artillery)
• Caricatures
• Daredevils
• Flight
• Humor
• Performance art
• Political art
• Spectacular, The

• image

• No linguistic content; Not applicable

Shared Shelf: 18432178

Online finding aid

• inSite Archive

Performing Arts (including Performance Art)

Sculpture and Installations

born digital

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

Unknown (US)

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2024-04-22