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Tokyo Drift 3

Alex Pitre

2017

Alex Pitre’s Tokyo Drift 3 explores the human mind's capacity to drift. When we get overwhelmed with the struggles of daily life, we tend to dissociate and go to a place in our minds where we feel content or “happy.” By utilizing Google Maps, Pitre explores this phenomenon as the visual representation of Tokyo. Japan becomes more distorted and displaced as we wander the virtual streets of Tokyo.


I have been re-visiting this piece created for a friend who now fears to walk to the streets. It feels more relevant than when it was created. We want to go outside but violence hems desire.

Frannie reminded me of a time I wandered through the streets of Tokyo.

//The sakura bloom and fill my vision. The petals fall like snow in pink light. What is snow? I can’t remember the cold. Isn’t this city always warm and sunny? Aren’t we always welcome here?

I run through portals. I stare at people going to work or already working. I’m losing my grip on reality. Our world slips away from me.

I drop into an alternate reality of only experiencing these petals. When I come back to this world, I forget that existence. Every time I lose a moment in this world, I am actually searching for that reality again.

A reality unpeppered by taxes, grocery shopping, plumbing, fleas, divorces, tea kettles, or spectacles. We can keep the tea kettle if you’d like. If you’d like we can search together. We’ll lose hold of this world slowly and waken in the reality of our choice.//

Frannie will watch this memory and will build a memory from scratch. She will start at the sky and build downwards until she finds her feet beneath her.

Artist Bio

Based in New Orleans, LA, Alex has particular interests in interactive storytelling, fiber arts, histories, and their intersections with technologies and programmatic logic. They earned their B.S. in Performativity in New Media Art and Critical and Contemporary Writing from CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies.

IG: @_alex_pitre_

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