The following article is taken from the Philadelphia Daily News on Tuesday March 4th detailing recent sightings of fake gun cutouts dangling from Philly telephone wires.

What if the "fear" these fake guns spread is not a product of the work itself, rather a product of making people realize the reality of what is happening in the city around them. The final reader's comment puts it best - the city doesn't take down shoes, which could be markers for auxiliary purposes, but it does take down these symbols.

Icons can be instruments of power. And likewise dealing with things symbolically can often be easier and faster, than dealing with problems and details of reality.

Now the article:

The art of fear: In Philadelphia, violence is in the air

By Ronnie Polaneczky Philadelphia Daily News

From a distance, the object looks like a black sock, or a dark bag, that the wind has lifted and dropped onto the wires strung across Spring Garden Street at the southwest corner of 16th.

But when the breeze shifts, the object swings sideways, and it's heart-stopping to recognize what is gently swaying above the traffic: two handguns, tied together near their triggers and obviously flung over the wire, the way kids toss their old Chuck Taylors.

An identical pair of guns swings from the wire across the street at the northwest corner.

A closer look shows that the guns are not real, but cut from black plastic or painted wood. But the image they create is so convincing, I wanted to warn people crossing the street beneath the faux firearms to stay away.

At least for their psychic protection. On such a lovely morning, with a soft breeze promising spring, the guns are as jarring to the eyes as a gunshot would be to the ears.

Who in the world would throw those guns there? Why?

Were they part of a school project? A half-dozen public and charter schools are within steps of the intersection - including Julia R. Masterman and Benjamin Franklin high schools, and the Laura Wheeler Waring elementary school, whose students were involved in a violent altercation near the corner last week.

The Masterman kids had been outdoors filming a project for an anti-violence rally when the attack happened. Their presentation took place a few days later. Maybe these crude weapons were part of the students' presentation?

But a Masterman spokeswoman knows nothing about them.

Neither does a rep from Community College of Philadelphia. The school is on the same corner where the guns bob on the wire, but the rep has never seen them before, either.

Maybe they're forms of gang communication? Gang activity in the city is on an uptick. Some teens have been victimized for something as innocent as wearing clothing in colors considered off-limits to nonmembers.

But a spokesman for the Police Department's Central Detectives, whose jurisdiction includes 16th and Spring Garden, says the swinging guns mean nothing to them. Nor are the weapons meaningful to the folks at CeaseFire Pennsylvania, whose gun-control efforts keep them in the loop, bullet-wise.

As yesterday stretches on, I spy two more sets of handguns, hanging over Fairmount Avenue at 22nd and 25th streets. And I read on phillyblog.com that guns also have been spotted in Queen Village and at 19th and Kater, where cops recently closed the street until Verizon workers in a bucket truck could cut the things down.

So the guns are probably supposed to be works of guerrilla art, which we are to gaze upon and ponder how they've become as ubiquitous as sneakers in this town.

Because we don't know that already, right?

That's the problem with this "art" - if, indeed, that's what it's supposed to be. It belabors a point we already know, and it does nothing but further frighten brave people who, just by living and working in this city, are already frightened enough.

Like Masterman sixth-graders Katie Kilcullen and Azja Pharr, who cowered beneath the guns yesterday while waiting for their SEPTA ride home.

"I think it's scary," says Katie, staring up at "art" that seems designed to mock the girls. "We can't come up with any reason why someone would hang them there."

I can.

Maybe someone who isn't brave enough to attach his or her name to his political statements hoped to shock us into noticing something that - duh - we already know.

But all the artist succeeded in doing was frightening schoolkids who don't deserve to feel frightened while doing something as mundane as waiting for a bus.

Reader comments:

Jack Klompus said:

Always about the guns. Never about the people who use them.

08:49 AM, 03/04/2008

heidiss said:

One theory is that these guns are hanging to mark spots where drugs can be purchased.

09:41 AM, 03/04/2008

dhm said:

Shoes are usually thrown over a wire--I can only assume the children in Philadelphia are now using guns as shoes.

12:42 PM, 03/04/2008

tulipwalk said:

It needs to come down now. Sick. Put up a big peace sign instead! Why can't young people today be part of the solution?

01:17 PM, 03/04/2008

Reggie said:

If they were put there to draw attention to something - even if we already know it - it worked. If they were real, okay, that might be a bit 'sick' but since they're not, how about we take it down a notch...

02:10 PM, 03/04/2008

Bob said:

Maybe it marks the spot where you can buy illegal guns. It's just kids having a little fun.

08:09 AM, 03/05/2008

CleanupPhilly said:

It's an artist who's trying to say, here's where you see guns, drugs, and violence, and if it scares you, then it's time you woke up from your sleepy dreams and looked at it.

03:36 PM, 03/05/2008

katie said:

My question is why the city doesn't remove the shoes....those are the actual markers for drug dealers and crack houses, not the art-gun.

02:31 PM, 03/11/2008

architecture is built to embody, or becomes the embodiment of the ideals,the dilemmas, of its time

it is a performance, a experience,

it is space which instigates reaction

which makes architecture is a political act.

"Architecture then needs to stop thinking like an institution, less like a solider and more like a gorilla" as Scott Shall put it last night at the Temple Univ. lecture concerning Gorilla Architecture. The gorilla does not follow the rules, he is a reactionary, states a cause brought on by a need and this idea is brought through desperation and strong belief. The statement is designed to shunt those who accept the status quo in and effort to instigate a conversation, perhaps a change, and maybe a revolution.

thoughts from the IDC lecture 1/30.08