Out of the Blue: Remembrance of Dresses Past

The only memory I keep from kindergarten is from Carnival day. We were all gathered at the playground, waiting for our pictures to be taken. A girl came toward me and, out of the blue, slapped me in the face. I remember her name: Natalia. I remember her princess costume: a silky dress in royal blue and dark turquoise. And, of course, I remember her brutal slap—and not just for its violence (that still stings) but, above all, for its arbitrariness (which hurts even deeper)...

Nothing

I've met people who weren't depressed, yet wouldn't detect a strand of humour even if it was showed right up their asses. That's just to say, by way of introduction, that I am not, in fact, surprised that depression is associated so often with some sort of nihilism on account of the nothing to which the depressed clings. Because the depressed—above all—clings. She clings onto nothing and the nothings she feels, and sees, and utters, seem completely incomprehensible to anybody else...

‘The Burning House’

Last summer—when I was at my most depressed and in the midst of a long relocation process—I painted, over black cardboard, a blue, female figure standing at the threshold of a house already in flames. In my mind, there's no doubt that the house is in flames because I am in flames, and that I stand at the threshold of a future already ravaged, already lost...

The Long Road: ‘Liberté et Patrie’ (Jean-Luc Godard & Anne-Marie Miéville, 2002)

The 'and' functions to always carry the links forward—but it also operates across each pair ("freedom and fatherland, fatherland and freedom": the visual and aural back-and-forth is a constant in the film). It's the movement effected by the 'and' that frees the terms from themselves, and frees the pairs from themselves—threading relations that multiply and amplify, that give substance, background and meaning, that constellate a veritable cosmos out of those two initial notions...

Looking and Seeing: Lang/Decker/Magritte

A word/image collage on de difference between looking and seeing inspired by images of Fritz Lang, John Decker, and René Magritte...

The Geometry Lesson: ‘The Book of Mary’ (Anne-Marie Miéville, 1985)

The triangle is an important figure in Anne-Marie Miéville's 'The Book of Mary'. This short film chronicles the separation of a couple focussing on the effects it has on their 11-year-old daughter, Marie. This sudden mutation of the stable family triangle is abstracted in a geometry lesson – a scene between father and daughter, happening halfway into the film...

If versus Despite: ‘Sweet Dreams’ (Marco Bellocchio, 2016)

In Marco Bellocchio's 'Sweet Dreams', there's a scene in which the teenage hero, Massimo, is questioned by his teacher, Father Ettore, about why he keeps telling his friends that his mother is alive when, in reality, she's been dead for several years. "If she were still here … ", says the kid. "If, if … 'If' is the mark of failure. In this life, it’s 'despite' that makes you succeed", responds the Father...