All Work and No Play is a guerilla art installation attempted in Dubai in Decemeber 2007. Numerous towers are being constructed at the same time in Dubai and at night they leave all the lights on. For the installation, we sneaked into the construction site of one of the towers dressed as laborers, and tried to manipulate the existing building's lighting with light filters, using the facade like a pixelated mural.

Background: Dubai is growing at a rapid pace, becoming a center of mass commercialism. People come here to make money and leave, and sometimes this works against the idea of community. Added to this is the fact that people come from all different cultures and often don't know how to act towards each other. For people living here, it can sometimes be a cold environment where basic priorities are confused.

This artpiece was created to send a positive message to Dubai, not connected with a sale or linked with any commercialism. We wanted people to relax and not get caught up in the PR and hype the city generates. We wanted to remind people to respect and be happy with each other. The building we chose was along a major highway for the best visibility. The smiley face was chosen as something that is positive and instantly recognizable by all cultures. If someone saw this building smiling at them and it caused them to smile, then the piece worked.

We scouted the place out a few weeks ahead of time. We bought the same colored outfits as the 3rd world laborers at the construction site. It was determined the best method would be to sneak under the fence, go up the stairs to the correct positions and tape on the light filters over the lights; quick and easy. There would be no physical alteration or damage to the building. Installation would be quick and could be taken down easily. Originally, it was important not to ask permission to do this installation, because even though the message was positive for the people, the act of installation was a critique on the commercialism-over-community the city propogates.

A manifesto was created to send to the local newspapers once the installation was done.

We had two teams, one team would enter the building as laborers (Sundown and Broadband), and the second team would wait outside with cellphones to direct the inside team to the correct placement, and to call if the police showed up.

On installation day we snuck under the fence and got up the 2nd floor but after searching around we could not find any more stairs to higher levels, all higher levels were accessible only through the outside construction lift. We went back downstairs and worked our way outside when we were caught by the safety manager! He asked us what we were doing and we said we were electrical engineers and we were supposed to look at the lights and had to take the lift. They brought us to the lift but then another Safety Manager came by and told us we looked suspicious and that he couldn't let us up beceause we had sneakers on and not work boots. He then told us we had to go to his office to talk. (We had come up with the codeword Bananas if it ever got too heavy and we just needed to run out of there, we almost used it then).


Once we got to the Safety Manager's office I explained what we were really doing; an art installation. I explained the idea and showed him the proposal image; he smiled. He thought the idea was fine with him, he saw that nothing would be damaged, but he could not give us permission, we would have to talk to the Site Manager the next day.

What followed was me coming back to the site five more times to present the idea to higher level officers each time. Each time they would comment the same thing "I really like this idea, I think it's nice, however I can't give you permission, you need to see [higher level officer]"

However, at the end of all the meetings the owner of the building, a local Emirati, denied me permission. He could not allow the possibility of something going wrong or getting hurt on his site, it would generate bad press for him. It's unfortunate that often times people are less motivated when there is no promotion of goods involved, it's harder for them to understand the intent.