FOX 29 sent a reporter and cameraman out to the Main Plaza to cover the San Antonio performance. Anchors Michael Valdez and Mileka Lincoln introduce the work by asking the audience how many times something bright and colorful runs into them. At the end the weather man makes a joke about someone giving the excuse of, “I saw a monster, I swear.” for why they wrecked their car.

Transcript:

Mileka Lincoln: Well finally from us tonight — you can run into a lot of colorful sights in downtown San Antonio.

Michael Valdez: But — Have you ever had one run into you? Meet performance artist, Jimmy Kuehnle, who unleashed his inflatable, You Wear What I Wear, suit on downtown this afternoon. The UTSA grad uses the suit to challenge himself and his unsuspecting audience to break out of their everyday routine. Kuehnle is on a tour of Texas right now, where he says he normally draws a lot of smiles and a lot of pictures.

Jimmy Kuehnle: We can categorize this. This is a fountain. We can categorize those cars. Those are cars we don’t pay a second thought to. But when we see something that — our brains can’t categorize then possibly we might have new thoughts or become vulnerable to new ways of thinking — and this is just one attempt to try to break through that repetitive consciousness each of us have

Valdez: Ah — How about that? Kuehnle says he has been breaking out his inflatable art for the past four years all over the nation. If you watch that whole video, really people are like complete unfazed by it.

Lincoln: Really? – I would have turned and run

Valdez: He like runs — He like runs into people and there just like, “Hm — alright.” — Here’s our Anthony Pittman with Maximum Sports — Antonio.

Lincoln: He would have run.

Anthony Pittman: Honey how did you wreck the car? Well, I thought I saw a monster. I’m serious. Oh, yeah –`

Apparently Fox News picked up the feed from Nina Criscuolo’s story as well. The Fox Report with Shepard Smith aired a bit about the inflatable suit performance in the Across America segment.

Transcript:

Shepard Smith: — Kansas. Check out this guy. He is a performance artist who hangs out in downtown Pitttsburg in an inflatable suit. The guy says he likes to surprise people and challenge their perceptions.

Jimmy Kuehnle: I make bicycles that are large and extravagant. I run for office sometimes, and I do anything that can just get out in the streets and change people’s way of thinking.

Smith: Good luck with that. And that is a Fox watch. Across America –

Link to Fox News clip:
http://video.foxnews.com/v/3991081/across-america-127-/?playlist_id=86856

Nina Criscuolo of KOAM 7, a CBS station, braved the wet and cold to shoot video of my inflatable suit performance trek down Broadway in in Pittsburg. She followed me down the street documenting my visits to fast food restaurant parking lots as well as the reactions of the people of Pittsburg. Nina also reports for the local FOX station KFJX 14.

Link to the story on KOAM:
http://www.koamtv.com/global/story.asp?s=11861162

Link to the story on KFJX:
http://www.fox14tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=11861162

I spoke with Jason Carr of the FOX 2 Detroit Morning show at the FOX 2 studios. The interview went fine except for the fact that large inflatable suits do not fit well inside television studios. The suits banged into the lighting rigs a bit, but no damage was done.

Getting the suits out and inflated before the performance got me pumped for what I knew was going to be a cold performance on the streets of Detroit. I stopped by a diner before that performance to grab a burger and to top off the air blower batteries. As I entered the building a woman exiting asked me if I was on the news that morning. I replied, “Yes, and I will be bouncing down the street in a few minutes.” That is the kind of accessibility and audience scope that I seek with my performances.