Art project: Human cannonball to be fired across border

As public art project, human cannonball to be fired across U.S.-Mexico border

at 16:17 on August 27, 2005, EST.
ELLIOT SPAGAT

SAN DIEGO (AP) - David Smith Sr. holds a world record for the longest distance travelled by a human fired from a cannon. On Saturday, he plans to add to his cannonball coups by shooting himself across the U.S.-Mexico border.

The feat is the brainchild of Venezuelan artist Javier Tellez and inaugurates a series of public art projects in the two border cities of San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico.

Smith will be shot from a Tijuana beach over a rusty, corrugated metal fence into a park in San Diego.

David Smith Jr., also an accomplished human cannonball, said his father will be the first person to fly across an international border from a cannon.

Tellez organized the event with psychiatric patients at the Baja California Mental Health Center in Mexicali, Mexico, as a therapeutic project. It is part of an art series that begins Saturday and will run through the fall, sponsored by inSite05, a binational arts partnership in the border region.

The artist said in a statement he was inspired by circus performers to explore "the notion of spatial and mental borders in the context of Tijuana and San Diego."

Tellez, 36, and Smith Sr. worked closely on the backdrop, music, costumes and advertising for the project, One Flew Over the Void.

Although it is illegal for anyone to enter the U.S. outside an official port of entry, U.S. Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar made an exception for Smith Sr., a patrol spokesman said.

Smith Jr., 28, said the family insisted on the government's approval.

"I had to have some kind of official OK high enough up to make sure he doesn't land in the U.S. and go to a federal penitentiary," he said.

Smith Sr., of Half Way, Mo., is listed in Guinness World Records for record distance for a human fired from a cannon. He flew 56.64 metres on May 29, 1998, in West Mifflin, Pa.

The Smith family has five cannonballs: father, son, two daughters and a cousin. Smith Sr. built seven cannons designed to fire humans, and his family operates five of them, travelling around the world to perform at events including parades and concerts, his son said.

"If one of the girls has a baby, they can't be a cannonball during that time," said Smith Jr., who was scheduled Saturday to be shot from a cannon in Toronto.

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