Drive to Escape

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This project was to do a performance piece and document it.

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I get caught up in my own head a lot, often with thoughts that are stressing me out or depressing me. Every once in awhile I just want to get as far away as I can. Just jump in my car and drive away. To drive for as long and as far as I can just to be away from everything. This piece is very based in that idea of escaping. 

Often times when I want to just drive off somewhere in the terms of escaping, I always end up talking myself out of it because of responsibilities or thinking that it was pointless. So I decided to push myself to actually take the plunge and go for it. Essentially I was pushing myself to do something that could ultimately be useless, but also at the same time it was pushing a personal boundary for me. 

My documentation was very challenging, as my performance was more an act of concept than a visual idea. There was choices I made however to add to the tone of the performance. I decided to do this drive at night for example. There was a lot of reasons I chose to do that, but mostly because often times I’m running away from an empty feeling and night time is often quiet and empty. Then there is the practical side that often the thoughts that made me want to escape away are things that keep me up at night sometimes. I felt pushing myself by doing this at night when I was tired was also symbolic. In terms of editing I wanted the first half to be messy and confusing, much like thoughts in my head. Then the last half was a time lapse of my journey, with the dashboard being speed up and the empty road being slowed down to give a contrast about the nature of just driving forever to escape. The audio was the sounds of driving modified to different speeds to create an interesting aesthetic. I discovered I could slow down the sound of my turn signal to match the visual of my dash’s clock ticking away during this sequence. It was different to explore a concept that wasn't as visually appealing.