SHOOTING SPREE : CAMERA VAN'S 20,000-MILE TRIP SNAPS NATION'S PORTRAIT.

Byline: Ann Layne The San Francisco Examiner 

Harrod Blank's 1972 Dodge van doesn't just vroom, sputter and honk, it also snaps, flashes and rewinds on cue.

Covered with 1,705 still and video cameras, the ``Camera Van'' has blazed trails through the Bay Area, Florida, New York and hundreds of backwater towns in between since April 1995, when its creator first gassed up and marked a jagged route through the nation.

Some 20,000 miles and 40 states later, this specimen of car art is parked inside San Francisco's Exploratorium, where schoolchildren can marvel and giggle at his creation until Feb. 2.

Clustered around Blank's anomaly during its first day on display, kids cranked lenses, pushed buttons and pointed at photos taken by the van on its tour.

``What retards,'' said one boy, smirking as he studied a candid shot of two Russell, Kan., residents at a Bob Dole rally. ``That lady's, like, picking her nose.''

This formerly white delivery van is not just a melee of shutters and lenses, but a carefully crafted mosaic of Kodaks, Super 8s, pink-and-blue Fisher Prices and even a Mickey Mouse-eared model. Gray and black Polaroids, rolls of film, flash cubes and mirrored glass form the pattern of a giant camera face on the driver's side, and an unraveled roll of exposed film adorns the other.

``I had a dream one night that I covered a car in cameras and traveled around the country capturing people's faces,'' said Blank, the 33-year-old Berkeley artist-filmmaker behind the ``Camera Van.'' ``I woke up and knew I had to follow the calling. I started collecting cameras right away.''

After one year of scrounging through bins at the Goodwill Bargain Barn in Santa Cruz, Blank bought $3,000 worth of silicone caulk, screws and rivets, and went to work. Rigging four fully functioning Canons to buttons on the dash board, Blank said, he transformed the van into a net, catching the human spirit wherever it drove.

During his safari through cities such as Webster Springs, W.Va., during the annual Wood Chopping Parade, and Rochester, N.Y., during the Kodak Camera Festival, Blank and cohort Alexis Spottswood met drunks, fishermen and a hook-armed farmer who took the van for an UFO.

``This guy thought aliens just landed on his land,'' he said. ``He drove his pickup up to us, jumped out and just couldn't cope with this strange being on his farm. I notice that what people say, how they react, and the looks on their faces say a lot about who they are and what their take on the world is.''

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Photo: Harrod Blank drove 20,000 miles across America in his 1972 Dodge van decorated with 1,705 still and motion picture cameras.

Associated Press