Parked on the High Line above Little West Twelfth Street are two special-order vehicles by make of the artist Tishan Hsu. The pod-like sculptures, titled car-grass-screen-2 and car-body-screen-2, pose like show models from the cyborgian factories of a nightmarish future (or present?) in which iPhones merge with their owners. Images of orifices abound on their Photoshoppy skins; ears blend with camera lenses, nipples with phone screens, and plant matter with warped mesh.
An accompanying video, accessible by QR code, shows the cars’ imagined interior life. The trypophobia-inducing montage flashes images of fleshy bellies, grass, dirt, and a horrible respiring blowhole. The automobiles raggedly draw breath—are they in pain? Do they remember that they were once human?
The sculptures entice passersby like exotic zoo animals: Close inspection transforms the cute into the grotesque. The banal horror of organic life reveals itself in all its squishy, sebaceous glory. The tranquil High Line becomes a lurid carnival. And the cars, perhaps like us, become creatures whose vigor must be subdued for the sake of safety, convenience, and entertainment.