The hotel was abandoned. 40 stories tall, the structure stood as a reminder of the city before the economic collapse, before the financial institutions were invalid, before the sun turned to black. The sheet of paper was found beneath the bed of a room on the 35th floor. The text, evenly spaced, held the aesthetics of concrete poetry, an ordered sense of space explored by a typewriter. The text was a list.
0. [Nothing]
1. An ordered sense of valance, colors shifting between red and gray
2. The corner of a room.
3. A sinkhole, endlessly deep, the blackest black imaginable
4. Pre[text disturbed by dirt and age]ncy
5. The discrepancy between the image and its title
6. A collection of notes on the Fold
7. Gender, indicative of cinematic excess
8. The time R[xxx] had nothing to say
9. Prismatic glass
It has been reassuring to find that there are ten items on the list, and the strange numbering can be assumed to be an eccentricity by its author, or perhaps simply a desire for numerical symmetry. After the list had been bandied around the institute for three weeks, a small manual of explanation was offered for all interested parties:
0. [Nothing]
The author of the note begins his list by offering a textual approximation of the void, here represented by an absence of content demarcated by a number "zero." The zero presents the violence of the white page as a subject, and thus establishes the tone of the entire list. For references on the objective nature of the performative page, refer to Mallarmé & Anne-Marie Albiach, 19th and 20th century French poets, respectively.
1. An ordered sense of valance, colors shifting between red and gray
Initially this caused the most dispute among researchers at the institute. But when an archaic dictionary revealed that valance refers to drapes on a bed's canopy, a new suggest was presented. The idea presents the sentence as a stage for an event, and the event, in this instance, is as follows:
An individual lies on his or her bed. Upon waking, the first material object that the eyes catch sight of is the drapes hanging off the edge of the bed's metallic shell. As the individual rubs his or her eyes, the colors of the drapes shift from somewhere between red (the actual color of the drapes) and gray (the value presented to an eye that cannot see color, thus seeing the world in a more limited palate of black and white. The impact of this event is carried throughout the day. A constantly applied (and then denied) desaturation of the natural environment creates an extremely delicate mental state. This mental state is an ideal position to be in should the individual subject his or herself to hypnosis. \
2. The corner of a room
The acclaimed author of speculative fiction H.P. Lovecraft, in a story entitled Dreams in the Witch's House presents the idea that the intersection of angles found at the corner of a room can be exploited to create a quantum portal to a parallel universe, allowing things to both access and escape from the waking world. Considering the momentum of our list so far, it can be assumed that combinatory effects are heading towards some sort of textual ritual.
3. A sinkhole, endlessly deep, the blackest black imaginable
By now there seems to be some indication that the list is serving as generative tool. An invocation of the sink hole creates a permanence in the earth, but posits the location as unknown and mysterious (the blackness). The sinkhole is also a structure that is neither man-made nor intentional. It is the earth acting autonomously, the earth loving cold bodies.
4. Pre[text disturbed by dirt and age]ncy
The fourth item on the list, after much discussion, has been determined to be "preternatural fluency." A familiarity with the paranormal (and even the paratextual) is clearly a necessity for using the text. Perhaps it is included on the list as a reminded to the author to stay on top of his or her "game," so to speak.
5. The discrepancy between the image and its title
There is no image on the sheet shared by the list itself, so we can assume in this case the "image" being referred to is the idea of the image. A discrepancy between image and title creates a distance for the viewer, an experiential sense of space. This seems to echo item 0., the presentation of the page as a space in and of itself. We now have an idea of both physical and mental space established via the list.
6. A collection of notes on the Fold
Whether the list is referring to the mechanics of a black hole or the theories of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze is uncertain. | "The upper chamber of the baroque house is closed in on itself, without window or opening. It ‘contains’ innate ideas, the folds of the soul - or what we might call, following Guattari, the incorporeal aspect of our subjectivity." | Either idea fits within the context established so far, elaborating concepts in unique ways.
7. Gender, indicative of cinematic excess
A poll done by the top researchers of the institution have come up with the following list of films to illustration this item:
- In a Year With 13 Moons, RW Fassbinder
- La Femme Publique, Andrzej Zulawski
- The Trois Coleurs Trilogy, Kryzstof Kieslowski
- Funeral Procession of Roses, Toshio Matsumoto
- Black Lizard, Kenji Fukasaku
- The Cement Garden, Andrew Birkin
8. The time R[xxx] had nothing to say
Narrative absence. This introduces the idea of dialog without actually having to create dialog. Characters (though the name of the character in this case is obscured) are introduced and we are met with a potential conversation.
9. Prismatic glass
The pyramid is a crystal, and as we know from historical research, the pyramid is an essential structure when considering occulted architecture. The prismatic glass of a crystal separates the world into a spectrum of light, breaking everything down individually, splitting the whole. Once we can gather the essential parts of a whole we can begin to understand the way things (the world, ontology) works, exists.
0 comments:
Post a Comment