"Cruising", by Ingrid Ankerson and Megan Sapnar, combines spoken word with a crazy interactive reel of black and white images of the speakers hometown. It's story about high school girl antics in "small town Wisconsin" - pink lipstick, sniffing out the street like dogs, cruising mane street in Mary Joes fathers station wagon, (told against a background of what I presume to be Spanish guitar?)
At first I couldn't really tell if my mouse had any effect on the way the image reel moved. When I got patient with this internet contraption, I realized it did - I could make the reel spin by faster or slower, move it closer or further away. It reminded me of a little video game I had when I was a kid - I could drive this little car down a track, the car would stay in the same place but I could move the track with the steering wheel. I reckon if I wanted to get super analytical about this, I would say that the electronic medium allows the viewer to manipulate the presentation of the poem, thereby showing the lack of control the speaker has over her life. (I was a teenage girl once, I had fun once, I'm hip, ok ? I know what its like to grow up in a small town and have life flash before my eyes at times.)
Anyway ...
We've come a long way since Albert Tennyson recorded his poems into a wax cylinder.
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