Centerline
Editing in progress.
Centerline is a video and sound work built from recordings made while driving through the desert landscapes of Arizona, Utah, and Nevada over several days.
As night fell, it became almost impossible to see the cliffs, the rock formations, or much of anything beyond the shoulder. The only thing that remained was the painted centerline stretching ahead before disappearing into darkness.
For long stretches of the drive, I found myself relying almost entirely on the centerline, the changing vibration beneath the tires, and the sound of the car crossing rumble strips to know where I was on the road.
One night I was pulled over.
The officer walked to my window and told me my headlights had been off.
I hadn't realized.
Having spent most of my life driving in Los Angeles, where the night is filled with city lights, I assumed this was simply what driving through the desert at night was like.
He helped me turn them back on.
The landscape appeared instantly.
The cliffs returned.
The desert returned.
Everything I thought had disappeared had been there the entire time.
When I replayed the recordings that evening, I kept returning to the things that had carried me forward before I knew I was relying on them.
As the trip continued, I started noticing the same structures everywhere else.
Roads direct the moving body.
Gas stations slow it without fully stopping it.
Motels suspend movement without resolving it.
The room is borrowed, unfamiliar, and occupied only briefly.
Movement becomes quieter without disappearing.
HVAC systems cycle on and off.
Mini refrigerators hum continuously.
Rotating hot dog rollers move like tires.
Slush machines churn beneath fluorescent light.
Distant footsteps arrive and disappear.
Even in stillness, the building continues its own choreography.
These places are almost never the destination. They're built to keep us moving.
They organize movement through repetition, rhythm, light, sound, and spatial arrangement.
The soundtrack follows the same logic::
Tires on pavement.
Tires on gravel.
Rumble strips.
Windshield wipers.
Fluorescent hum.
Refrigeration units.
Room tone.
Hallway ambience.
Roads dissolve into motel corridors.
Fluorescent aisles echo painted lane markings.
The rhythm of passing centerlines echoes rotating machinery.
Centerline follows the moment a painted line stops being background and becomes the thing carrying the body forward.