Live Trap (2008–2009)

Live Trap (subtitled Product Placement / How to Overcome Fear) is an experimental series by Iain Ball catalogued as an exploration of “basic survival mode” during a volatile period of personal and cultural transition termed “polymelt.” Wagered across dual geographies—while stationed at RMIT in Melbourne, Australia in 2008, and returning to Oxford, England in 2009—the project utilizes transient, object-based interventions, tactical product placements, and physical “life traps” deployed directly into real-world environments.

The series focuses heavily on themes of modern alienation and the psychological toll of advanced capitalist conditions. By positioning work within liminal zones and contemporary “non-spaces,” Live Trap acts as a raw search for meaning, stability, and purpose. The project uses temporary arrangements of consumer goods and strategic spatial disruptions to navigate, confront, and critique the isolating, incubatory architectures of a hyper-globalized society.

A selection of photographic documentation from this period has been archived on-chain and curated into the Iconoplasm X Live Trap NFT contract, bringing together these early ephemeral object arrangements and public interventions alongside its contemporaneous sister project, Iconoplasm, as a unified archival body.