beijing, may 2010. individually wrapped cookies and the extra air inside packagings to prevent the chips from breaking. full of excitement, woody asks for our permission to polish the wooden surfaces in the room. he later forgets his basketball behind when his grandma rushes him to go eat dinner. fluffy white things getting in my eyes as i’m riding the bike. the daily tears. the precariousness of life in china. so much dust. everything happening out there, in the open, like the man who is trying to ‘hide’ his bag amidst the bush in the middle of a busy highway. all flesh, no skin. we ride the bus and he argues that women are weaker than men, generally speaking, everyone should know their place, he says. gobo, my new favourite. she says i take too much care, like being mama, ‘can you enjoy when you are like this?’ but then a few moments later she says i’m like child. postmaturity? my friends’ babies and wedding plans. so much life happening. the unpronounceable volcano, the mispronounced “debt restructuring”. sigh. where do we go from here. the haunting pronouns. acknowledging the other. ethics, infinitely demanding. hitting a ball against the wall, our mediated exercise. winter turning into summer, no spring. the guilt of being far away. the relief of being far away. the time, the time, the time. i try to make a dorodango. it turns out not that shiny and ends up cracking on the way home.
metapresence
when i returned to Beijing after approximately one month away, i played the game, as always, of walking around the neighbourhood to see which places have disappeared in my absence, which new businesses or grand ambitions have moved in to replace the failing or derelict, a sort of remapping one’s estrangement within the city. i walked from xiaojingchang hutong to the northern end of andingmen nei, and with hands in pockets passed by a candy bar vendor (new), a book-laden cart full of pirated publications on technology/software (old), and a cardboard box stand topped with rows of socks (old). i walked into the andingmen hotel, where i end up sleeping for several nights, a new tourist in a now familiar city. there was a small exhibition and series of events happening in two of the rooms of the hotel, and it became a quiet but social place to welcome myself back into a place of growing certainty; this was a place delicately juxtaposed with all the awkwardness and adamance that one can have about one’s sense of place in the world. it was called “also space“. during these few days, there was a certain amount of presence, self-consciously experienced and toyed with, a space and socius to make one acutely aware of all the small details of showing and not knowing.
each morning i would wake from the hardish hotel bed in room 221, happy for warmth but tired for tiredness, enter the bathroom and begin to rearrange the selection of hotel offerings, as are commonly found in many temporary lodgings: two plastic wrapped soaps——packaged again in a printed cardboard box——three toothbrushes, two plastic combs with the hotel name in gold-coloured print. I took away one of the toothbrushes and replaced it with a toothbrush in similar packaging from another hotel. I added a plastic wrapped disposable razor labeled, “one to one”, not knowing which hotel i may have taken it from. another time and another space. a sewing kit from yet another hotel, travel-sized toothpaste from germany, travel-sized moisturizing lotion from hong kong. over the course of these few days, some of the items disappeared or were refilled by the service personnel, the blue towels were replenished with white ones. i thought about the possibility of being absolutely present in a place which one can deem home and not home at the same time. when the maid did not make the bed, i did it for her. but i left one of my hairs on the pillowcase along with a dried mandarin peel, and i wondered if any of our guests would notice and ask, “is this an artwork, too?” it’s a funny game to play, to observe everything in an unexpected place as possibly “art”. perhaps not so different from a game of trying to notice all the places that have disappeared or been born in one’s absence.
there was a certain consciousness of presence that i attempted to maintain in these days, living in a hotel in my “home” city. i commuted back and forth to my flat to change clothing, deliberately sprayed on too much perfume. i tried to pay attention to artworks, but fell asleep; a conversation would float past and i would suddenly remember something else that i was supposed to do. and only after a few treks between xiaojingchang and the northern end of andingmen nei did i notice the disappearance of the 24 hour Quick convenience store (old) and insertion of Bee’s cafe (new). Workers move on and on. Presence is a just-fading, a recognition of small distractions.
If we had not noticed the miniscule details of change, development and/or the passing of time around us, would we have missed a minor referencing of the present, a consciousness of our own time away from now, self-reference, a meta-presencing? Present that cannot exist, like a young architect asking questions in the form of statements about scale, he discovers his talk is not there——μετά as “after” or “beyond”, as “with”, “adjacent” and “self”.
Posted by 丫 | more »wasted time, excessive time, suspended time, comrades
“But when we begin to question our projects, to doubt or reformulate them, the present, the contemporary, becomes important, even central for us. This is because the contemporary is actually constituted by doubt, hesitation, uncertainty, indecision—by the need for prolonged reflection, for a delay. We want to postpone our decisions and actions in order to have more time for analysis, reflection, and consideration. And that is precisely what the contemporary is—a prolonged, even potentially infinite period of delay. Søren Kierkegaard famously asked what it would mean to be a contemporary of Christ, to which his answer was: It would mean to hesitate in accepting Christ as Savior. The acceptance of Christianity necessarily leaves Christ in the past. In fact, Descartes already defined the present as a time of doubt—of doubt that is expected to eventually open a future full of clear and distinct, evident thoughts.”
–boris groys, comrades of time
Posted by f | reply »tuning out to tune in or tuning in to tune out
it starts out as almost inaudible. actually, it’s not even a sound at all, more of a sensation or suspicion. very minuscule but you know exactly what it is. even so, you have some time to bide. the distortions have yet to make their presence felt.
the frequencies change. the quiet rustling becomes a deafening roar. time comes into focus and the need to adjust becomes apparent. ignoring this sensation only prolongs the irritable. . . .
alter, adjust, adapt, amend, modify, revise, refine, redesign, rework, reorder, vary, transform, transfigure, transmute, metamorphose, and evolve.
“the observational aspects of photography were carried off into other areas…”
“i frequently go to sleep.” (during my concerts) -phill niblock
the city as film
yesterday/today/tomorrow
The weekends were less exciting to him than were the weekdays. On Saturdays and Sundays, a hollow feeling washed over him and he struggled to make it through those days. Time was spent with the T.V. filling his musty wood-paneled apartment with welcoming sounds, going to the Men’s Club and sitting there alone while the rest of the men were with their families, and going through the weekend paper, methodically. At night he would warm up some old pasta from the night before and check/recheck his lotto tickets while still allowing that T.V. to add some dialogue into the apartment.
Weekdays however, were different. He had a routine that he really enjoyed and with this being Monday, he had five amusing days in front of him. Getting out of his apartment and heading over to the Club was his first priority. At around 8am, the first wave of straphangers would make their way to the subway and this was the first of two highlights of his day. Born and raised in this neighborhood and having left only once, for the war, he had seen the dramatic change to the neighborhood occur right before him. Today’s commuters were composed of twenty and thirty somethings who had little regard for tradition. They seemed to be slightly unconscious to their immediate surroundings…which he found curious. What were they constantly entertaining that made them seemingly exist outside of the present? Life seemed a little overwhelming to the younger generation he thought. Their distracted faces, the way they dressed, the young couples, this all kept him in a stupor until about 10:30am when the parade subsided.
Midday was mostly spent at the Club eating lunch, going over neighborhood gossip, watching t.v., and playing either pinochle or breaking out the cribbage board. Recently though, he felt the need to slip home and try to grab a few hours sleep. Nights had turned into restless endeavours and at his age, sleep was a necessity.
However, once 5:30pm came around, his favorite morning routine started its second act. He tried his hardest to read their faces, seeing if he could decipher those expressions to come up with certain conclusions about their day. He thought about all the meanings of the word “communication”. He was never mistaken as a poet and this form of interaction suited him just fine. Eventually, the procession from the subway to the various apartments came to a slow trickle.
On this night, as the dark clouds started their march over the neighborhood, and everybody made their way home for dinner, he thought it would be a good idea to head to the deli and pick up a few Lucky 5 scratch-offs for the long night ahead of him.
Posted by joe | reply »for a minute
The most difficult part of living in that castle was utilizing all the space. I was alone at the time and passing through those immense empty rooms just shed light on how solitary this life could be if I allowed it. Not to mention my phobia of immense empty spaces. So of course I invited all my friends to live with me. That still left a few rooms empty. So each empty room was designated as studios, mapping rooms, a greenhouse, a giant laser building workshop, etc.
The location was great as well. We had a great view looking west over the East River, an empty lot to the south and a junk yard to the north. The east side of the building faced the street where we could easily load and unload from the building. I wasn’t about to call it a utopia but it seemed like a nice little niche that we had carved out.
I thought that the “trick door” on the south side of the building would be great to keep just in case I decided to turn evil. It would be something that would really get me going by telling someone that the next room over was absolutely amazing . . . go ahead, just walk through that door. In the end, I knew it would only be used to take in the views of the south.
The castle was in a bit of disrepair but I’d figure that we could start on that the next day as it was getting dark and we had no food inside. This meant I would have to leave the grounds and venture back into town . . .
Posted by joe | reply »|
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