Happy like Dylan is a live video performance made with images that migrate and circulate through different territories and mediums, both current and virtual. By linking the Phantom Ride of early cinema, conduction simulation video games and truck drivers streaming on Twitch, this performance proposes an experience questioning the flow of goods and images while exploring its archaeology.

This video performance was then transformed into a paper for the Revue Turbulences. (Download PDF, in French)

This research-creation article chronicles a virtual journey that takes as its starting point the live footage of a Dutch truck driver on Twitch, Trucker_Dylan, highlighting the spectacle-making of vehicle driving and freight transport. Videos of a Czech truck driving simulator, the visual ASMR on YouTube, and the phantom rides of early cinema illustrate developments in the monetization of various visual objects found on the internet linked to the mise en spectacle of vehicle driving from the early 20th century to the present day, as well as that of our attention in today’s iconomy of connected images. Finally, the text questions the impact of automation on the driving experience, highlighting the changing role of attention and cognitive work in our relationship to images.

Performed for the first time at the conference Images en tr@nsit. Territoires et médiums, Aix-Marseille Université, 27-29 April 2022.