I'd like there to be a story about a man who built a birdhouse big enough for him to sleep in, and dragged it to the ocean. And I want that story to be true.This became the impetus for a sort of undercover collaborative performance I staged with citizens of Marquette, Nebraska. Salvaging a rusted old railway cart and wood from a fallen barn to build such a birdhouse, I set out to the Oregon Pioneer Trail (now a state highway), ostensibly to drag this birdhouse to the ocean. Three days later I was stopped by the local Sheriff, who informed me that I was to "remove my obstruction immediately." But along the way, I ate and slept in that birdhouse, and ran into a number of difficulties, and involved a lot of people. I had constructed the birdhouse so that I could barely manage it alone, and so I often required the help of strangers to keep me on my way. My first day on the road the birdhouse toppled into a 6-foot ditch on the side of the road, and I required a nearby farmers' tractor to rescue it. The smallest puddle or incline forced me to flag down passing trucks for help pushing the birdhouse. Sometimes (but not always) I was asked to explain why I was pushing this birdhouse, and, not willing to spoil the illusion of the experience by writing it off as "art," I explained how I had put every icon for freedom I could think of - birds, life on the road, the pioneers - into this one craft. I was doing this for freedom! And all this talk of freedom would come out while on our hands and knees, struggling to free this 'freedom craft' from the muck in which it was mired. I hoped that some of my hypocracies (and their relevance to other's actions) would settle in once these strangers tried to explain what they encountered on the road that day to friends, or themselves. I've made a 6 minute video documentation of this "performance," though I prefer to refers to these sorts of projects as "actions" or "experiences." Because I do not want to alter the experience for my unwitting collaborators, I have only recorded my solo moments on the trip. You can also see some photos here. This project was built and pushed while an Artist in Residence at the Nebraska Art Farm. Thanks to my brother, Dan, for all his help building it, and to Janet and Ed for the Art Farm's support.