The Unanswered

Multimedia by Jack Starling

Performance Space Orlando • August 20, 1999

Leo Oiler

There is a long lost voyeuristic thrill of looking out your window as a child, seeing the neighbors project vacation slides on the living room wall. Where exactly did they go? What did they see? Why did they choose to record these particulate images? Local photographer and artist Jack Starling recreates that same peepshow in the intimate confines of Performance Space Orlando recently. Starling spent a week or so bumming around Italy last January, when tickets are cheap, skies are gray, and tourists are in hiding. His photo video experiences are intensely personal, revealed without commentary forcing the audience to reinterpret for themselves.

Starling presents an anti-travelogue. Scenes of tourists poster Italy are few and distorted. The focus instead is on the interstices of the journey – other aircraft on the ramp, in flight clouds, and the gray industrial territory his train passes through to reach the never clearly revealed destination. A throbbing techno soundtrack by WPRK mix master Levi emphasizes the ennui of travel, the dreary passages we forget when we report back to homebound friends. Even the closely spaced chairs force the audience to reflect on the 29-inch seat pitch we frequent travelers endure, hoping against hope that some day we, too, will upgrade to first class – even if only on the hop to Atlanta. ◼