Skip to main content

Moving Image / Alien Toy UCO (Unidentified Cruising Object): project documentation

Have a question about this item?

Item information. View source record on contributor's website.

Title
Alien Toy UCO (Unidentified Cruising Object): project documentation
Creator
Ortiz Torres, Rubén (Mexican painter and installation artist, born 1964)
Contributor
InSITE97
Date Created and/or Issued
1997
Contributing Institution
UC San Diego, Special Collections and Archives
Collection
inSite Archive: Selections
Rights Information
Unknown
Constraint(s) on Use: This work may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). Use of this work beyond that allowed by "fair use" requires the written permission of the copyright holders(s). Responsibility for obtaining permissions and any use and distribution of this work rests exclusively with the user and not the UC San Diego Libraries. Inquiries can be made to the UC San Diego Libraries department having custody of the work.
Use: This work is available from the UC San Diego Library. This digital copy of the work is intended to support research, teaching, and private study.
Description
Film, Audio, Video and Digital Art
Sculpture and Installations
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
Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego, La Jolla, 92093-0175 (https://lib.ucsd.edu/sca)
This video file was extracted from a DVD-R from the InSite Archive (MSS 707, Box 256, DVD 97-10)
[Title, Date]. InSite Archive. MSS 707. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.
Barrio Logan (San Diego, Calif.)
Type
moving image
Format
Digital video (52 minutes, 6 seconds)
Form/Genre
documentaries
sculpture (visual work)
installations (visual works)
Language
English
Subject
Border art
Humor
Popular culture
Automobiles
Video art
Marionettes
Performance art
Unidentified flying objects
Toys (recreational artifacts)
Political art
Logos (Symbols)
Documentaries
Sculpture (visual work)
Installations (visual works)
Mexican-American border region
InSITE97
Place
Mexican-American border region

About the collections in Calisphere

Learn more about the collections in Calisphere. View our statement on digital primary resources.

Copyright, permissions, and use

If you're wondering about permissions and what you can do with this item, a good starting point is the "rights information" on this page. See our terms of use for more tips.

Share your story

Has Calisphere helped you advance your research, complete a project, or find something meaningful? We'd love to hear about it; please send us a message.

Explore related content on Calisphere: