This interactive web piece, "dishonorable discharge shoot fast," is based on
my ride on a train from the airport, and relies on user interaction to draw out the
meaning.
My flash programming sets boundaries for user interaction, and allows layering and varied
outcomes.
I was observing the people on the train through their sounds. I was unintentionally
listening to people discussing illegal things – drugs, and shooting people. After I
got home from my trip, I wrote a poem about the train ride and my thoughts about social
class, based on the sampling of those people’s words on the train. The poem is found
in parts, and is comprised of observations projecting my inner workings while in transit.
In addition to the computer reading my poem, I sampled relevant sounds during my walking,
a time when I best reflect on events of the past, or the happenings around me, and
conceptualize my art. It is through these sounds that I developed the visual
representation of my journey.
I also included the computer reading a different poem, which I had previously written,
describing a dream about a day of war and destruction. It was the violent nature of those
people on the train’s discussion, and my hopelessness that I felt when I realized
what sort of life these people seemed stuck in, that deemed it necessary to include the
other poem. There was a man on the train who described receiving a dishonorable discharge
from the army, while scheming with his friend on money-making ventures, and mentioned that
the army was “where it’s at.” That is one of those impossible question and
answer sessions where a person may find himself stuck – how can you find a good job
if you were kicked out of the army, but you still hold the army in such high regard, that
you think it is the best place to work?
The poems are broken up into sections and looped on occasion. If the user moves the mouse
over, or touches certain sensors on my spine, new elements of sound and imagery are
introduced, and the meaning changes. The layering of the parts of the poems create new
words, which were not originally uttered from my mind’s lips.
The imagery is clean and simple, consisting of some photographs, fabric softener, and some
drawings. Brian Sterner took the picture of me while we were walking at the park. The
other pictures are of the cocoons found on the cherry trees that I admired while on that
walk. The cocoons protect caterpillars while they grow, and allow them to feed on the tree
that they are attached to; and grow into something beautiful and highly detested – a
Gypsy Moth. Through these cocoon photographs, I am drawing parallels to the people on the
train. There exists a complicated relationship between a non-native species feasting on
and destroying something that we hold dear - a tree.
The line’s create the shell of the train, and define the space. The fabric softener
to the left is the window where I catch the visual portion of my imagination – where
I concentrate my eyes, and attempt to give off the appearance of not listening to those
people surrounding me.
The dots are the particles, and are continually dispersed by the form that is the train.
The particles eventually form sensors that run up and down my spine, and are also control
mechanisms. These twinkling dots are controlled by external stimuli; and produce varying
sounds, portions of poetry or visual representations of those who sit to the right of me
on the train. The sounds are compiled randomly based on the audience member’s
interactivity with the piece.
- Allison Rentz 2002
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