Individual Work
Dandelion Chance

Part autobiographical e-postcard, part motivational journey, Travis Alber's “Dandelion Chance” is a non-interactive Flash animation whose motion principle is always visually evident, whether in the form of train tracks arcing forward on the cover of a journal, a streaming video of a quiet town from a train window, or a time-lapse overview of a nighttime highway. The central tension between self and motion is illustrated by seemingly opposed possibilities of the closing lines: “Dandelion chance: scatter your thoughts to the wind,” on the one hand, and on the other, the advice that “If the future preoccupies the present, do your best to stay the track.” This is compounded by mode of address in the overlaid text, which shifts between first and second person; the author's commentary regarding her life on the go do not necessarily translate directly into advice for the viewer, but instead seem to extend out of a general principle undergirding the whole, like the next stop on a train route.