Entre Ville is a complex exploration of a slice of life, one that is specific and very much real. By subjecting ourselves to the experience of the work, we become a part of this life. The work employs many techniques to immerse users in the mind and memory of the narrator. Entre Ville was created as a way for others to experience JR Carpenter’s memories of her hometown in a uniquely structured and deeply personal way. Because of this, there is no doubt that Entre Ville encourages empathy and identification with a unique perspective.
This is done mainly through a sensory overload. We see moving, living, breathing clips of the neighborhood and its smallest intricacies from the point of view of a handheld camera; we are not simply being shown these back alleyways, but we are experiencing them as firsthand memories. We are affected not only by visual stimulation but also by the sounds accompanying each place--each scrap of a memory. By clicking on the No Dogs sign, we see the dog as he is described in the poem, his tags clinking together as he runs down the alleyway.
In other windows we hear sounds from the street, like cars, birds, sirens, construction, babies crying, and people talking, though we never see any of the things that produce the sounds. There is a general sense of hopelessness and abandonment. In one video, the streets are covered in what can only be described as junk: toasters, lamps, and toys--pieces of lives left behind and forgotten. By documenting this, Carpenter captures the desolation of a neighborhood that once was lively and bustling.
In her poems, Carpenter describes her neighbors as she remembers them: the vulgar Greek woman, the French trumpeter, the sex-crazed couple upstairs, the child who peeks over her fence to spot the dog. We never hear the full stories of her relationships with these people, only senses of what they were like. These small fragments of experience combine to form a patchworked consciousness that is both nostalgic for the past and separated from it. Carpenter's videos were filmed long after the poems were written, and we sense this tension between past and present. This puts us in a position of longing, with each video representing a ghost of the past. Brief moments are weaved together and layered by text and mechanics to create an overarching experience of Carpenter's years in the neighborhood.
