the text and images below are posted from beijing, berlin, buenos aires, hong kong, los angeles, new york, sado island, shanghai, tokyo and zürich. there are a few of us, and this is the space in between.
subscribe | Log in


new/old neighborhood/amenities

newold

Posted by joe | more »


the in-between

waiting
waiting for this to pass…waiting in line…waiting for the water to boil…waiting for her…waiting for it to set…waiting for them to open…waiting for the light…waiting forever…waiting for me…waiting for the bus…waiting for it to save…waiting for them…waiting for hot water…waiting for it to load…waiting outside…waiting on the corner…waiting for you…waiting for summer…waiting for him…waiting for it to dry…waiting for another time…waiting to talk…waiting for a sign…waiting for it to stop…waiting for an approval…waiting for the right moment…waiting…
I can’t wait  i can WAIT i CAN”T wait  i CAN wait  i can’t WAIT I can wait

Posted by joe | more »


icarus

hanging

“Did I really speak? Have I ever really spoken?”

Posted by 丫 | reply »


please meet here and now

An Appointment
Alexanderplatz, Tuesday, 27 January 2009, 18.00

ling_alax001[photo by 高灵 Gao Ling]

This is your latest minute notice to our meeting and appointment. Please come to Alexanderplatz station, the platform of the U8 line, between Le Crobag bakery and the Presse + Buch shoppe. Apologies for having been so late all the time lately, does 18.00 sound like a weak quantification of all the things i haven’t caught up to yet?

Please meet me, even if we don’t know one other. No one knows each other here, so let’s just try to remember that fact of all that we know we don’t know, that feeling that you next to me may have noticed it, too.

Mostly we’re ignorant. But I wanted to meet you anyway, an appointment in and of itself as a time and place predetermined. A context embedded into itself, choking, documented. Itself, itself, itself.

And a broad, come with—-first-time everything…

——–
An Appointment is part of the continuing PUBLIC research project by Elaine W. Ho and Fotini Lazaridou-Hatzigoga. Organized as a daily series of experiments, interventions and discourses, PUBLIC aims to examine the potentiality of latency and open spaces made possible in the relations between individuals and publics. Other activities are posted here. Some are open invitations to all, others are unannounced insertions in different locations throughout Berlin. 22 January – 1 February 2009.

Posted by 丫 | more »


不用老对我那么乐观, will i ever get tired of trying?

it’s been a long time (每只蚂蚁都有眼睛鼻子)… southside neighbour says our house’s coffee is so fragrant (它美不美丽偏差有没有一毫厘有何关系), and i can smell your breath every time i think of you, the last shock that you’ve been a grown man for a long while now, and it was something i never knew (每一个人伤心了就哭泣). does being near you change, the smells of the same old street at different hours of the day (饿了就要吃相差大不过天地), does it feel comfortable over the phone (有何刺激), even if she is waiting?

it’s been a long time (太多太多魔力太少道理)… a 500ml jar with a rubber stopper (太多太多游戏只是为了好奇), it was nicer to be a bit more abstract but he wanted to smell it. unfortunately, it was exactly that supposedly removed. Scent travels through air (还有什么值得歇斯底里). Your hair is longer and more done-up now, even in the windy streets out there, the clicking of your low-heeled boots, I like the awkwardness of getting to know you. It’s almost as good as knowing you too well, when we don’t have to speak anymore, and it doesn’t feel bad to not know what you’re thinking (对什么东西死心塌地). Thank you and no, no no.

It’s been a long time (一个一个偶像都不外如此) …to feel ill (沉迷过的偶像一个个消失), my throat hurting after sitting with you all wet through dinner. You didn’t know I was completely soaked, but the food was spicy and you asked awkward questions after I showed you my work (谁曾伤天害理谁又是上帝), and then I met your friend and we didn’t eat until just before the moment of missing the last train (我们在等待甚么奇迹). It’s been a long time since I came this way, and he uses his new car to pick up rides in the evening, A bit of extra spending money (最后剩下自己舍不得挑剔). don’t fall asleep on your way home, okay?

It’s been a long time (最后对着自己也不大看得起)… I try to use the right pronouns in the right places this time (谁给我全世界我都会怀疑), your loving of my use of “we” means that it is all i can offer, all that i hoped for (心花怒放却开到荼蘼). We is I or I is we. We is I is we is I is we. I thought about it in the shower when I came home (一个一个一个人谁比谁美丽), I thought about the most memorable showers I’ve ever taken (一个一个一个人谁比谁甜蜜), I thought about what it would be like to be you, I thought about taking back some of the things I’ve learned over these years (一个一个一个人谁比谁容易).

the sky, really, they say…

(又有什么了不起/每只蚂蚁和谁擦身而过/都那么整齐有何关系/每一个人碰见所爱的人却心有余悸)

[《开到荼蘼》 曲编: c.y. kong 词: 林夕]

Posted by 丫 | reply »


reflections, some nights before the incident

we drive into the night. not a soul. hardly a light. darkness and four lanes. and the vast abyss. enormous factories. chimneys. machines. conveyor belts. abandoned. left in silence. a grand rail station, concrete, steel and the dark. gas stations as pits of sand. dogs, astray. then, the chaos. the mess you forget sometimes confined in the capital and its delegates. truck upon truck upon truck. load upon load upon load. and coal. like black soil. rows of trucks parked along the highway like a derailed train. waiting. for a call. a sign. north (the privileged) or east (the lacking). cardboard boxes six meters high, heads up on the highway. excuse me, i think i’ve lost my way. mapless, pointless, endless. east ring south ring west ring. east it is. day time now. two lanes. sea. goods. conformist transport for alternative transport. but how long will it last? how long will we last? he enters, sits, and it fills the room. “so uncalled for”. electric fingers. “knocking down the banks of guilt”. electric toes. loss and losses. they become a part of you. they are a part of you. hold on and learn or let go and learn. or repeat your ways to infinity. nothing ever changes but we live in a place that is ever changing. the television set. handshake upon handshake upon handshake. so and so and his wife. so and so and his wife. the park shows an “ethical culture show”. where do we stand with ourselves. so many things left unsaid. left undone. forgotten. did we really meet someone that so reminded us of him. too many people have come and gone. not sure where dream and memory and story meet. it was the characters name in the latest chapter, but ‘v’ replaces ‘w’. what answer are you looking for. you keep pushing the question. it’s in the way you arrange your life. the way you do. the way you are wrong. the way you are right. just watch and you’ll see. we can’t say but we can do. or better yet, we can be. it’s one big, humongous run. another puff. he goes away for business. her baby is finally born. it was a girl, no? never had friends from that far away place so i’ll give you my number. a monolithic sculpture at the centre of the square. that image returns, as it does every now and then. a cap, a green coat, a dark night, frost, and the light, and the light and the stare, a memory like a photograph, lacking the evidence. here, now, tube lights, all white, in motion. the centre of one square kilometer. and la-din-wu. latin dancing. 11-year olds. boys and girls. a bleached-haired teacher. a long way we have come from the spring that came again. no, we can’t allow foreigners. no we don’t have any rooms left. no. no. no the rules have changed. yes, oh, she too? no. at 4 am a yes. a man in pyjamas. faded glory. lions at the gate. emptiness. the secret floor. the 28th floor. the 8th room. 158 yuan. waking up to the foundations. the new. the next. things have changed. six months. things have changed or are the things only surfaces.

Posted by a | reply »