FROM ANGST TO LUST
My mind is still stuck on John Akomfrah’s The Unfinished Conversation[1]. A long line of suppressed, crushed and haunted social movements of the last decades along with a burst of slowly revenging series of natural phenomena, nuclear radiation and the gradual opening up of the camera that ends up being as distanced as a cold blooded observer. The screenings turned into a subtly, extensively cited and modified shot footage that could feel as pointing a finger to the sorrowed viewer by scratching out for individual and collective accountability. This work was unbearably painful to watch.
Went out to face the fogged cityscape and burst into tears, feeling deeply defeated and overwhelmed by the imagery of the empire. Standing there, hit by a huge wave of metropolitan alienation while crying and trying to type some abstract words bound to be send over anyone I could find online. I was vaguely but furiously typing that my nose bleeds and that Capitalism has to be visually intimidating, to exhibit its pharaonic victory over less predatory visual forms. Had this revelation of Industrial revolution’s imagery as being intentionally yet scarcely present in the cityscape, reserved in a sole purpose to be diminished by the empire’s abundance. I could see an intention to sadistically exhibit that crush with the pretense of constant financial expansion. Such a simplistic, borderline-stupid remark have I made. Hit send.
A young and precarious pair of NGO recruiters approached my black bench to ask if I could take a survey for a cause I cannot recall. With eyes still wet I most kindly replied that I was in no position nor wished to talk to them at this point. Surprisingly instead of letting me be, the younger one replied that as I wasn’t about to talk to them, they could stand behind my back and perform all the talking themselves. What sort of ridiculous assault was that? I envisioned him possessed by the spirit of that same NGO’s CEO philanthropist to whom he was gifting his time to.
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I had to check-in online and so I did. What’s the point of adding paid services to a flight that had to cost you less than 50£? Choose a random seat allocation that’s free. Play by chance and wish to be either a window or an aisle; a kind of free gambling excitement. Just yesterday I came across to a filthy article on Evening that negated the aesthetics of local Paddy Powers, praised the glam of old-fashioned Casinos and concluded to the need of “Making gambling sexy again”. My seat was an E and so it instantly meant losing. No view and no pissing; just stay still between the lucky ones.
Turned flight-mode on so I wouldn’t have to switch my phone off; funny how that sounded like some sort of a Game Theory joke. How much time left until that stacked British cheese gets spoiled inside my hand luggage? Wish to deliver pleasure rather than pain; changed my mind already.
Offline applications to relax; proximity isn’t linear to telepathy so they can’t read your mind even if they’re skin close. I was fascinated with Haraway’s use of Holobionts and I didn’t care to sacrifice a cell or two on this flight. Air-circulating skin flakes as organic commons.
As privately as possible I browsed some old selfies and put some proper-for-takeoff music while aircrew lit the aircraft’s sensual lighting. Engines were already on and we were slowly taxiing. Tax - Taxis (order) - taxidermy. I recalled Lars von Trier’s Melancholia and wandered if affects only derive from human interaction. I always shut my eyes to intensify the sensation of body levitation during takeoffs.
At this very moment of writing I’m literally hearing someone masturbate next door; possibly half-naked inside an acoustic space that could be a bathroom. Suffice to say that they most probably have a penis.
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[1] John Akomfrah’s work on display at Tate Modern http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/akomfrah-the-unfinished-conversation-t14105
Marina Troupi
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