Cinema has been a constant referent in Txuspo Poyo’s oeuvre, both in a formal sense and in terms of content. For Crossing Tracks Poyo retrieves a structural element that he once used in his earlier pieces, which consisted of “weaving”, of intertwining strips of photographic paper, and later, celluloid. He thereby produced two-dimensional pieces on which a whole image could be seen. The concept of editing, of montage, was in those early pieces an omnipresent reference.

Crossing Tracks takes place in New York’s underground in 2003, two years after the attack on the World Trade Centre. One of the first images of the piece is an ad found in the city’s subway trains and platforms: “Si ves algo, di algo” in Spanish, and “If you see something, say something” in English. Both warn the population about a possible danger, and thereby contribute to creating a collective psychological state of paranoia.

In the video, the carriage doors open, the train leaves quickly and when it has left we can read the signs of Prince St and Canal St stations. The columns dividing and separating the tracks become structural elements dividing the image in fragments and distorting and manipulating the view of the station. The latter becomes a network of images that travel horizontally, passing through vertical fixed elements, giving the subway station a certain feeling of depth and irreality.