Looking out the Passenger Window
Mixed Media (Clay, found objects, carseat, page from "ways of Seeing", mannequins from sears, steel, fabric, VHS TVs, Writing, manipulated found footage, audio recordings, David Bowie in a nightmare)
Large scale installation
2021
Mixed Media (Clay, found objects, carseat, page from "ways of Seeing", mannequins from sears, steel, fabric, VHS TVs, Writing, manipulated found footage, audio recordings, David Bowie in a nightmare)
Large scale installation
2021
I have been staring out the passenger window. I’m trying to count the trees that pass me but as I try to count one, another takes its place, and another and another. It's hard to keep up. I don't even know what number I got to, or if I got to any at all. I can’t tell how long we’ve been driving or how many trees we’ve passed. It's hard for me to imagine when we got in the car or when we will get out. I wonder if my dad counts trees, I suppose he could. Do you think someone could count forever if they wanted to?
We haven’t been driving for long. My dad takes a hand off the leather steering wheel to turn up the volume to the music. He feels me counting. Honestly this is the first time I’ve noticed the music at all. I tend to get lost in the rhythms of the car. I hear a song start to play. It's David Bowie, and his voice is getting louder, space oddity is coming out the vents. “Ohhhh am I floating in a tin can...far above the world” I think I am floating...just like major Tom. I wonder where he floated to off in that space suit, the song doesn’t really clarify. But space isn’t clear anyway, how can something be an entity but also limitless. Sure it becomes less dense the farther out you venture but you can always keep going. You can always keep counting. There is no beginning or end, just existence.
We’ve been driving forever and not a word has been spoken. Sunk into the cushion of my seat I haven’t moved but everything else has. It's like everything knows where I am going but I don't. But maybe it's fine, possibly even good. I’m happy we don't know everything. Why should we. Answers are overrated, questions keep you moving in a car. My dad turns up the music and it's the same song. I've been sitting on my legs, criss crossing them. I’m almost certain the bottom of my left leg is asleep. My hand has a strong urge to move it or poke it, but It doesn’t. I don’t think it will. I try to imagine what it would feel like. Most people would say nothing but that's not true. The feeling of my index finger pressing into my calf like its foam is nearly too real to deny. I wish it were real, but it's not. It starts to sting so I put my legs out in front of me. The sudden movement alerts my dad, but he quickly looks back to the long road ahead. I never knew how heavy my leg was. It's a heavy sleeper like me.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm asleep. I always know when I am in a dream until I can't tell if I am awake. Maybe it's the way that people only act like themselves or the way nature looks symmetrical. Sometimes I take walks at night and the world sounds like it's playing through a soundtrack. I’m not trying to be depressing, I am just thinking out loud. Maybe that's all dreaming is, it’s just an unconscious version of thinking out loud. We fall asleep knowing we will be completely unaware of what we are doing, so we can experience stories and moments told to us by an unknown source, only to forget most of it when we wake up. We spend half our lives in a nonsensical existence, split between two unconscious realities.
The song just ended and for a few brief moments everything is still. I look at myself through the glass of the passenger window and into the outside mirror attached to the car. Dim light from the setting sun casts a soft illumination on the closer half of my face. I look into myself for several moments. I try to understand where I am through the way my eyes stare back at me. Sometimes I have to remind myself what I look like. I can't help but think I have a made up perception of myself within my thoughts. Still staring out and keeping myself from even the slightest movement, my face begins to blur as the passing trees come back into focus. I imagine the sound they make is similar to the sounds of frames moving in a film strip. This feels like a film. Moving frames...passing Trees.
As the last few moments of silence migrate into memory, the crackling static of radio begins to meet my ears. The anticipation of what will play holds my attention for a few brief moments before I hear a change in sound. A voice from the radio speaks, “You're never moving in a moving car. The trees never start nor end. Memories are movies. Fact is still fiction” I take in a sharp quiet breath, confused by what I've heard. My fingers nervously tap the tops of my legs and lightly scratch the denim of my pants. Looking down at the car's grey floorboard, I wait for my dad to say something. He heard it, He had to hear it. A moment passes and I get this numbing, static feeling in my stomach. I fold my arms in on myself and feel warmth from my red wool sweater, but there's also something else, something more. An invisible friction vibrates within me, and a numbing static hums from the pits of my body. This sounds dramatic but it's how I feel. Feelings can't be faked. The sensation expands like a high. I feel like I'm floating.
Day has transitioned into night, and the dark blues, greens, purples and reds that color the nighttime atmosphere change the dynamic of the car. Looking out the glass of the window, the trees are blurred and difficult to count, more difficult than before. I can’t stop thinking about the radio earlier. I remember the voice in the static so clearly, its tone was deep and rough, but somehow familiar. Was it talking to me, maybe it's known me this whole time?
I lean my head on the side of the car door near the end of the seat belt. I can feel my head leaning against the hard glass, and lights from the car bounce off the window like reflections from the moon. I almost miss it but after seeing nothing but trees I spot an old TV dumbed on the side of the road. Even though It passes in an instant, I remember it clearly. Its bulky, plastic body was logged halfway into the ground like a buried artifact, and the lightly scratched glass screen was lifted above the ground. Who put it there? How long has it been sitting? The longer I think about it the more the memory of it begins to deteriorate, however I can't seem to forget one strange detail. The TV seemed to be on. Its static glow ripped through the night and imprinted its illumination in my eyes and on my face.
How is that possible? I still haven't moved my head from the glass. Maybe it was waiting for a story, or someone to orchestrate its light. I think of what the voice said on the radio, “Memories are movies”. I read somewhere that our memories are never really accurate, like when you have a memory you actually are just remembering the last time you had the same memory. It's just like that game telephone, after the story has been shared three or four times it's completely remade and retold. So really, memories are more akin to stories of fiction than truth. Reality only happens once, and it passes before we can realize we're in it. Moving frames... passing trees. Everything is fiction, even the truth.
The feeling of numbing friction is strong. It expands throughout the wholeness of my being and I begin to float inside the car. The static illumination of the radio expands through the pits of my body to the tips of my fingernails. The familiar voice fills the car once more;
“I have been staring out the passenger window. I’m trying to count the trees that pass me but as I try to count one, another takes its place, and another and another. It's hard to keep up. I don't even know what number I got to, or if I got to any at all. I can’t tell how long we’ve been driving or how many trees we’ve passed. It's hard for me to imagine when we got in the car or when we will get out.”
I now embody this feeling, this indescribable, intangible feeling. I can only understand it through the glass of the TV, and it's warm static vibrating within me. It's nonsensical but it exists. It's indescribable but it's definate. It's explained through fiction but it's real.
Moments pass, and then everything is quiet again. The dark blues, greens, purples, and reds are lifted when I open my eyes. I feel the cushion seat beneath me through my denim pants. I glance at my dad and find his focus has not shifted from the path ahead. I think about saying something to break the silence but I decide to listen to the hum of the road instead. I lean to the right of my seat and position myself to look through the glass of the lightly scratched car window. For a brief moment I look at myself in the car mirror. I move my mouth in the slightest way just to watch my reflection mimic me. The suns soft warmth hits my face. I feel the moment, but after it passes I look away from the mirror and watch the trees pass me by.
We haven’t been driving for long. My dad takes a hand off the leather steering wheel to turn up the volume to the music. He feels me counting. Honestly this is the first time I’ve noticed the music at all. I tend to get lost in the rhythms of the car. I hear a song start to play. It's David Bowie, and his voice is getting louder, space oddity is coming out the vents. “Ohhhh am I floating in a tin can...far above the world” I think I am floating...just like major Tom. I wonder where he floated to off in that space suit, the song doesn’t really clarify. But space isn’t clear anyway, how can something be an entity but also limitless. Sure it becomes less dense the farther out you venture but you can always keep going. You can always keep counting. There is no beginning or end, just existence.
We’ve been driving forever and not a word has been spoken. Sunk into the cushion of my seat I haven’t moved but everything else has. It's like everything knows where I am going but I don't. But maybe it's fine, possibly even good. I’m happy we don't know everything. Why should we. Answers are overrated, questions keep you moving in a car. My dad turns up the music and it's the same song. I've been sitting on my legs, criss crossing them. I’m almost certain the bottom of my left leg is asleep. My hand has a strong urge to move it or poke it, but It doesn’t. I don’t think it will. I try to imagine what it would feel like. Most people would say nothing but that's not true. The feeling of my index finger pressing into my calf like its foam is nearly too real to deny. I wish it were real, but it's not. It starts to sting so I put my legs out in front of me. The sudden movement alerts my dad, but he quickly looks back to the long road ahead. I never knew how heavy my leg was. It's a heavy sleeper like me.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm asleep. I always know when I am in a dream until I can't tell if I am awake. Maybe it's the way that people only act like themselves or the way nature looks symmetrical. Sometimes I take walks at night and the world sounds like it's playing through a soundtrack. I’m not trying to be depressing, I am just thinking out loud. Maybe that's all dreaming is, it’s just an unconscious version of thinking out loud. We fall asleep knowing we will be completely unaware of what we are doing, so we can experience stories and moments told to us by an unknown source, only to forget most of it when we wake up. We spend half our lives in a nonsensical existence, split between two unconscious realities.
The song just ended and for a few brief moments everything is still. I look at myself through the glass of the passenger window and into the outside mirror attached to the car. Dim light from the setting sun casts a soft illumination on the closer half of my face. I look into myself for several moments. I try to understand where I am through the way my eyes stare back at me. Sometimes I have to remind myself what I look like. I can't help but think I have a made up perception of myself within my thoughts. Still staring out and keeping myself from even the slightest movement, my face begins to blur as the passing trees come back into focus. I imagine the sound they make is similar to the sounds of frames moving in a film strip. This feels like a film. Moving frames...passing Trees.
As the last few moments of silence migrate into memory, the crackling static of radio begins to meet my ears. The anticipation of what will play holds my attention for a few brief moments before I hear a change in sound. A voice from the radio speaks, “You're never moving in a moving car. The trees never start nor end. Memories are movies. Fact is still fiction” I take in a sharp quiet breath, confused by what I've heard. My fingers nervously tap the tops of my legs and lightly scratch the denim of my pants. Looking down at the car's grey floorboard, I wait for my dad to say something. He heard it, He had to hear it. A moment passes and I get this numbing, static feeling in my stomach. I fold my arms in on myself and feel warmth from my red wool sweater, but there's also something else, something more. An invisible friction vibrates within me, and a numbing static hums from the pits of my body. This sounds dramatic but it's how I feel. Feelings can't be faked. The sensation expands like a high. I feel like I'm floating.
Day has transitioned into night, and the dark blues, greens, purples and reds that color the nighttime atmosphere change the dynamic of the car. Looking out the glass of the window, the trees are blurred and difficult to count, more difficult than before. I can’t stop thinking about the radio earlier. I remember the voice in the static so clearly, its tone was deep and rough, but somehow familiar. Was it talking to me, maybe it's known me this whole time?
I lean my head on the side of the car door near the end of the seat belt. I can feel my head leaning against the hard glass, and lights from the car bounce off the window like reflections from the moon. I almost miss it but after seeing nothing but trees I spot an old TV dumbed on the side of the road. Even though It passes in an instant, I remember it clearly. Its bulky, plastic body was logged halfway into the ground like a buried artifact, and the lightly scratched glass screen was lifted above the ground. Who put it there? How long has it been sitting? The longer I think about it the more the memory of it begins to deteriorate, however I can't seem to forget one strange detail. The TV seemed to be on. Its static glow ripped through the night and imprinted its illumination in my eyes and on my face.
How is that possible? I still haven't moved my head from the glass. Maybe it was waiting for a story, or someone to orchestrate its light. I think of what the voice said on the radio, “Memories are movies”. I read somewhere that our memories are never really accurate, like when you have a memory you actually are just remembering the last time you had the same memory. It's just like that game telephone, after the story has been shared three or four times it's completely remade and retold. So really, memories are more akin to stories of fiction than truth. Reality only happens once, and it passes before we can realize we're in it. Moving frames... passing trees. Everything is fiction, even the truth.
The feeling of numbing friction is strong. It expands throughout the wholeness of my being and I begin to float inside the car. The static illumination of the radio expands through the pits of my body to the tips of my fingernails. The familiar voice fills the car once more;
“I have been staring out the passenger window. I’m trying to count the trees that pass me but as I try to count one, another takes its place, and another and another. It's hard to keep up. I don't even know what number I got to, or if I got to any at all. I can’t tell how long we’ve been driving or how many trees we’ve passed. It's hard for me to imagine when we got in the car or when we will get out.”
I now embody this feeling, this indescribable, intangible feeling. I can only understand it through the glass of the TV, and it's warm static vibrating within me. It's nonsensical but it exists. It's indescribable but it's definate. It's explained through fiction but it's real.
Moments pass, and then everything is quiet again. The dark blues, greens, purples, and reds are lifted when I open my eyes. I feel the cushion seat beneath me through my denim pants. I glance at my dad and find his focus has not shifted from the path ahead. I think about saying something to break the silence but I decide to listen to the hum of the road instead. I lean to the right of my seat and position myself to look through the glass of the lightly scratched car window. For a brief moment I look at myself in the car mirror. I move my mouth in the slightest way just to watch my reflection mimic me. The suns soft warmth hits my face. I feel the moment, but after it passes I look away from the mirror and watch the trees pass me by.
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