Van Halteran attempts to create a realistic portrait of riding the subway on a Saturday night. She allows the listener to visually recreate her own private experience through her vivid details. The background ambient noise adds to the feeling of an nterior monologue in the midst of the public sphere. She whispers to enhance the feeling that she is taking you along for the ride. It also allows her to position herself as an equal participant in the subway’s activity and not just as some omniscient narrator. By describing the various images and sounds, she delivers a sort of Rauschenberg-like collage. Rauschenberg always insisted your art had to be at least as interesting as what you see on the street and Van Halteran takes on this challenge by making her art capture street life as intimately as possible.
Review of Transit Duchess
Jonathan Goldstein
Posted on March 27, 2005 at 09:04 AM
Van Halteran attempts to create a realistic portrait of riding the subway on a Saturday night. She allows the listener to visually recreate her own private experience through her vivid details. The background ambient noise adds to the feeling of an nterior monologue in the midst of the public sphere. She whispers to enhance the feeling that she is taking you along for the ride. It also allows her to position herself as an equal participant in the subway’s activity and not just as some omniscient narrator. By describing the various images and sounds, she delivers a sort of Rauschenberg-like collage. Rauschenberg always insisted your art had to be at least as interesting as what you see on the street and Van Halteran takes on this challenge by making her art capture street life as intimately as possible.