A Red Alert Against AIDS

It seems as out of place as bloodletting at a wedding.

Well-heeled, apparently healthy shoppers in a corner of tony South Coast Plaza seem weighed down by nothing more than the bags they carry from the world’s most exclusive stores. Concerns? Whether to buy the Louis Vuitton purse or the Bulgari watch.

But an unusual artwork--in the form of a talking parking meter--is bringing the voice of AIDS to these consumers. Feed the meter a quarter and hear a man recounting his discovery that his partner has AIDS, and another man describing his lover’s funeral, and a third delivering a chilling refrain:

“There’s apprehension everywhere, there’s a deadly virus in the air.”

Families torn apart, the dying ostracized--hardly typical mall talk. But artist Karen Atkinson’s “For the Time Being . . .” takes in about $60 a month for artists with AIDS, more money than any of seven other such meters Atkinson has installed elsewhere.

And those seven all are in Los Angeles County.

Despite Orange County’s reputation for political conservatism, not a single complaint has been registered against the work in the year that it has been here, according to Atkinson, mall officials, and employees of l.a. Eyeworks, outside whose door the meter stands.

On the contrary, said Jamie Tucker, an Eyeworks optician, the meter “gets jammed” with too much change, and that’s when people get upset. “They’re like, ‘What’s wrong with the meter?’ ”

Atkinson, whose phone number is posted on the meter, remembers “one call from a gentleman who thanked me for the project. He didn’t leave his name or number. He just said he was really moved by it.”

Heading toward Nordstrom the other afternoon, Myrna Ross stopped when the red meter caught her attention. “It’s a good idea,” the retired teacher from Manhattan Beach said. “It reminds people.”

The meter takes in at least $10 more each month than the second most lucrative meter, at the Long Beach Museum of Art, Atkinson said. She thinks its success has been because of, not in spite of, its location.

“It’s in a really, really well-traveled area,” a place that is accessible more hours per day than, say, an office building, she said.

*

Atkinson installed 15 meters originally, choosing locations not only according to how well-traveled they seemed but for their cultural and geographic differences. (The sites ranged from the Watts Towers Art Center to the office of L.A’s Department of Cultural Affairs). She left it to the people at each site to decide how long to keep their meter. Of the seven no longer still out there, some have been returned and others are being refurbished.

The meters--real meters--were donated by a manufacturer. Artists and writers with HIV or AIDS, their friends and their families wrote and recorded material for the 12-minute tapes inside.

“I wanted to give people with AIDS a voice,” said Atkinson, who lives in Santa Monica and specializes in public art. “I wanted them to speak for themselves. Often it’s everybody else who speaks for them.”

She describes some of the writings on the tapes (which are updated from time to time) as hard hitting, some as sad and some as humorous. “But they are all very personalized, so it’s different from the usual media treatment.”

The trendy l.a. Eyeworks boutique has showcased contemporary art and has supported AIDS causes before. Its employees wanted to display the meter because “we felt [AIDS] was a serious issue and you have to talk about it,” said Heather Adams, the store’s general manager. “Silence doesn’t go very far.”

But the complete lack of grousing about the meter, which the store plans to display indefinitely, was surprising.

“A couple of years back,” Adams notes, “we did a window display called Safe Spex. . . . We hung colored condoms and put eyeglasses in them, and we got a lot of negative reaction. Some people were like taking their kids and running away [from the window]. They found it offensive.”

Adams noted that though mall management received several complaints about Safe Spex, the store wasn’t asked to change it.

When the meter first was installed, she continued, the employees were told that no store in the mall is allowed to put anything outside its door. But the head of security took one look and fell for the artwork, Adams recalls: “He said if we could get the volume down so it’s not quite so disruptive, he’d love to see it stay.

“Since then, no one has said anything. In fact, one of the security guards comes by and puts quarters in it.”

Maintenance workers, in the mall before it opens, also have been parting with change. “We know,” said Eyeworks optician Jett Schuster, “because it’s playing when we [get here] at 9:30 a.m.”

* What: “For the Time Being . . .,” an installation by Karen Atkinson.

* When: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Fridays; 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturdays; 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Sundays, indefinitely.

* Where: Outside of l.a. Eyeworks at South Coast Plaza, 333 S. Bristol Ave., Costa Mesa.

* Whereabouts: Take the San Diego (405) Freeway to Bristol Street and go north. The mall is on the left.

* Wherewithal: Free.

* Where to call: (714) 957-8255.