Phil Solomon with Mark LaPore, digital video

I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
Asked the lord above "Have mercy, save poor Bob, if you please"

Mmmmm, standin' at the crossroad, I tried to flag a ride
Standin' at the crossroad, I tried to flag a ride
Didn't nobody seem to know me, everybody pass me by
Mmmm, the sun goin' down, boy, dark gon' catch me here

Oooo, eeee, boy, dark gon' catch me here
I haven't got no lovin' sweet woman that love and feel my care
You can run, you can run, tell my friend-boy Willie Brown.

You can run, tell my friend-boy Willie Brown
Lord I'm standin' at the crossroad, babe, I believe I'm sinkin' down.
(Robert Johnson)

Two close friends broke through to a new dimension driving off the beaten path of road warriors, off the grid, into an eerie oasis of suspended time. Through counterintuitive disobedience, discarding the aggressive goals and rules of the game, they tricked their way with an open sesame into an unsuspected pastoral setting of challenging pivots and loops. This hidden realm has a temperament and pacing utterly at odds with the design of videogames, a landscape of eternal returns a well of anomalous poetry.
Solomon writes that originally this work was made "as a prayer, an offering, a 'get well soon' card..." for a friend who was not expected to survive. But 20 years later that friend is alive and well and both the makers of Crossroad are gone.
Crossroad (2005) now serves as a prelude, the rightful portal, a kind of digital "stele" or an inscribed monument that leads us into In Memoriam, the Solomon triptych that begins to surface in 2017.
Crossroad, an invocation for convalescence, a transfixing remedial playing field. It offers each viewer entry into a peripheral world presenting us with an ontological dilemma, a practical model for both contemplative and active attention.
(Mark McElhatten)