It’s a common situation for urbanites. A half-asleep morning commute, headphones left behind in the rush to get out the door leads to a game of ‘what is that couple over there fighting about? Ooh, look, somebody knitting. Why is that man across from me hauling so many groceries? (Possible scenarios: he’s throwing a dinner party; he has 14 kids; he has a secret zombie-apocalypse bunker).’
Sketch used for the video, by Alon Chitayat.
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Commuting on public transportation quite literally smashes you up against all kinds of folks. Artists Alon Chitayat and Jeff Ong are spinning fantasies about the inner lives of their fellow subway denizens into Subway Stories, an “interactive subway simulator” with a dash of clairvoyance.
Subway Stories in action.While all of us who live in cities have seen someone or another hurriedly drawing their fellow passengers, Chitayat and Ong are taking their daily sketches to the next level. In the Subway Stories installation, users control a video display of a moving train with an Aurdino-fitted steel box. Navigating across a car with with two subway conductor-inspired handles, zooming in on a drawing of an individual passenger will allow you to listen in on their thoughts. The voices are provided by a variety of authors who wrote stories after being shown the individual portraits.
The subway is a tricky muse, and riding it is an experience both totally dense and crushingly antisocial.The desire to connect with the curiously compelling strangers trapped underground with us is so strong that tons of Missed Connections are written every day (inspiring a dedicated art project of its own). I’ll bet every once in a while one of Chitayat and Ong’s subjects are wondering about what that mysterious guy with the sketchpad in hand is thinking about. Wouldn’t that make for quite the meta installation?All images courtesy the artists. Read more about Subway Stories here.
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