Show evokes border security nightmare

Centraltrak looks different.

The front door is locked and barred, with cryptic notices from the Department of Dreamland Security plastered over it. We walk around to the rear entrance, where a purple and pink car with blazing police lights and two uniformed authorities stand guard over a heavy iron gate.

We're at Checkpoint: Dreamyourtopia, an experimental piece of interactive art first displayed at the 2008 Burning Man Art Festival.

In a few weeks the artist, who prefers to be known as Dadara, will be taking his brainchild back to the Netherlands for another festival.

But before he leaves for home, Dadara agreed to show Dreamyourtopia in the United States one last time, at Centraltrak. The artist spent much of 2008 living in the UTD sponsored artist's residence and gallery.

We approach the security officers, who look very intimidating in their pink camouflage fatigues and Kevlar helmets. They bark at us to get in line and keep quiet.

One of them warns us that there will be hell to pay if we try anything funny. We head for the back of a short line of travelers, most of whom live in and around the Dallas arts district. Talking in line is fiercely punished, so we are unable to discover more.

Our turn comes up. We approach the security officer, who preempts our greetings and barks for us to present our papers. We hand over our Immigration Form WXRZYQ SFG 23587-492's and await the officer's judgment.

"Your handwriting is terrible. You expect us to read this? What are you trying to hide?" The guards bark questions at us, and we sputter answers back as best we can.

After a short back-and-forth, the lead guard abruptly orders us off to the next section. We pass through the gates and into the Dreamland Detention Center.

We start to approach the second station, but a guard swoops in and waves us back. He bellows, "KEEP YOUR FEET BEHIND THE LINE!"

The line here is long, and at the end we are only met with another unfriendly officer. We are questioned thoroughly over our immigration forms.

In addition to answering the standard questions about our names, addresses and occupations the forms require us to list our heroes, ideal occupations and dream addresses.

We also had to swear we had no intentions of subverting the Department's authority or engaging in "Dream Terrorism."

For the next half hour we are detained in the custody of Dreamland Security. In order to cross the border into our dreams, we have to submit to a process that is all too familiar. People are pulled away and searched at random, and watchful eyes stare us down every step of the way.

Despite being innocent of any wrongdoing, we begin to feel the same creeping sense of guilt and paranoia that normally manifests itself when a police car pulls in behind us or we're questioned at the airport.

At differing points we are asked to explain the answers we've supplied, correct minor (or imagined) errors, and present our IDs multiple times.

After jumping through bureaucratic hoops, we finally arrive at the interrogation tent. Here we are questioned by a man in a helmet that looks like a huge purple jester's hat.

He grills us without mercy, forcing us to prove our own innocence before we can pass. There is a feeling of great relief when the whole ordeal ends. The interrogator hands us our new passport, and ushers us out the final gate and into our dreams.

Not surprisingly, the piece was originally inspired by Dadara's own experiences with U.S. Border Control.

"They took me into a small room (and) started videotaping and questioning me for an hour and a half. The interrogator told me that if he caught me telling any lie, no matter how small, he'd make sure I ended up in prison," Dadara said.

The whole production is very impressive. Dadara and his army of pink-fatigued minions have clearly invested a lot of effort into this project, and it shows. Centraltrak feels just like a government office in Orwell's 1984. Dreamyourtopia is definitely political art.

Between the threats and jeers of guards, the claustrophobic atmosphere, and the undeserved feelings of guilt his interrogators managed to instill, I think he has done a fine job of translating his ordeal into art.

By the time I finally made it out the other side I was flush with the same impotent anger that normally comes after a trip to the DMV. That isn't an easy atmosphere to create or an easy emotion to provoke in an art gallery.