Get on the train, in the direction it will go the furthest
Fall asleep, or space out; lose awareness somehow
Wherever you wake up, get off
If there is a connecting train, get on and repeat
If there is not, choose to continue or exit
Once you leave
Find another way home
Artist Statement:
Trains have always been a point of interest for me, as has the general concept of being in transit. Something about liminal states really resonates with me, especially as someone who’s always felt like I fall in the middle of something, rather than on a specific side. This comes up a lot with my identity, as well as my physical location, notably once I started moving between sides of the country for school. Therefore, I’ve always been drawn to subway stations and have, in the past, taken days to just explore them and find the little details that people tend to miss and the beauty in something very normal and, oftentimes, annoying and unpleasant to people and their everyday lives. Even the aesthetics of them have always appealed to me, particularly the worn down look of a lot of them due to constant use by so many people and the eerie feeling of looking down the tracks or catching a glimpse of something out the window while underground. The theme of dealing with the mundane in the Fluxus movement and in Ono’s work really inspired me and brought this interest back to the forefront of my mind, so I knew I wanted to do something with train stations.
Though I based this piece on subways, specifically the MBTA, it changed quite a bit based on location and type of train. In my context, it was very localized, but in other contexts it could be much more spread out, and perhaps expensive. I would’ve loved to perform this here as well as during my trip to Chicago (which I had never been to before) to explore how it works in a different, unfamiliar setting, but I didn’t have the time. Still, performing it was relaxing, and allowed me to take some time for myself to space out and enjoy the process rather than the end point. This is what stood out to me about scores; they’re more about the steps and the in-between rather than the final product (if there is one), emphasizing the experience, which reminds me a lot of how I view travel.
Performance:
I started at the orange line in Tufts Medical Center and boarded a train to Oak Grove. I got off at Community College, which has no connections, but I didn’t want to end this soon, so I boarded a train going back in the direction from which I came. I then changed the score to provide the option of getting back on if one wants to. I then got off at North Station and boarded the first green line train that came, which took me to Park Street. From there, I transferred to the red line towards Braintree. I ended at Broadway, where I got out and looked around for a while before walking about an hour home.
