Paggank Daywagun, Harvestworks, Govornors Island, 2017
Reza Safavi and Max Kazemzadeh

Exhibited at the New York Electronic Art Festival 2017

Paggank Daywaygun (2017) is a multi-user interactive digital, kinetic, geo-locative performance media project that uses algorithmic functions calculated in a custom GPS Tracking Phone App that directs participants around Governors Island and back through Manhattan in order to repopulate NYC with nut trees and island soil. The soil that makes up more than half of Governors Island originated from the 1912 NYC subway system excavation. In Paggank Daywaygun (aka. “Nut Island” + “drum sounds”) participant movements around NYC are physically mapped to a user responsive nut shooting machine in the Harvestworks buildling. The nut shooter propels walnuts toward a target or “drum,” signifying the gradual historic disappearance of nut trees on Governors island, and the reason which the Lenape natives initially named the island “Paggank.” Each gallery visitor is assigned a specific Manhattan subway line and asked to take a seed pod with subway soil on a hangar. The participant will log into the pod-tracker app and head towards the subway line where they will hang the seed-pod on one of the hand-rails in hopes that someone will take and plant them.