肉 夢 Flesh Dream
Sable lays back on her plastic padded mattress and stares up at the neon white glow in motion of a haiku randomizer, the rooms ambient lighting. The place is beautiful in its simplicity. Back and white, and where there is age which speaks of history, sepia and gray. Wabi Sabi, the plays on the psychonic, mental radio-beam.
"white is the quest for purity
stained because the tarnished material we use to depict it
a longing
varnish and belonging"
She tunes out by altering her mental focus, gazing through a slatted perspex window at the city below. Her body tremors, she sniffs the clarity. On a low table occupying the center of her room is her payment, half of it cut early into little white lines that match the cities ambience. Wabi Sabi, the process of incompletion.
She remembers some of the dream from several nights ago, a strange world in which creatures of fantasy, faeries, dance and play amidst a vibrantly coloured forest. Her inner-self, a heart free of mind given freedom to flow as pure instinct. Does time function the same in the dreamworlds? Does time function the same in this city, where everybody autonomously robotic in their lifestyles, clattering like reptilian scales, clockwork machine people, ignoring one another to such extent that each other are invisible unless they share the same vibrational pathway that is the tao of whatever digital catalogue existence was chosen. Is it possible to shift tracks?
The limitations and frustrations of existing within a box, a box within a city made of boxes; pre-packaged people, pre-packaged lifestyles which it is an offense to question or seek to step outside the boundaries of. AI droid-cops float down on insect-like wings and with insect-like mechanical faces of sensors and lasers, ensure we step back on track. They lurk in shadows above and around us, hearing all, watching all, a surveillance society. We live in fear as they study us, fear lest we be extinguished for breaking the laws our ancestors set in place and programmed into these machines. Is it any wonder that our only outlet is to dream?
And in dream we discover such places, dragons and mermaids, a freedom of pine scented air, firefly glow passions. We meet others in the dreams, others from other worlds, other times and places. To transfer this visionary into brushwork, art for retail to sustain myself, to pay for the box and the protection of the droid-cops who keep this city quadrant safe and clean. Outside we are told there are others less fortunate than ourselves, the non-consumers, the non-elite. They live in horror which we cannot understand, the rust-world, the grunge, a decay. They live in animal poverty. We do not think of such things. Only the sleek of our black plastic and white neon lifestyles. How many invisibles are there in this city of perpetual night time? We should to question such things. To question leads to contamination, the breakdown of the social slipstreams we are individually provided for. This machine must not fail.
And so it is that I paint my dreams. Apparently the paintings offer hope to others who have not the ability to access the dreams. For them, the painting is the only insight in to the otherworld. But for me it is a real place. Some day I will find a method to make a transference, away from this world and into the dream completely, that I may exist there permanently.
The white powder from a plant grown in the city labs courses through my veins and keeps me away from the dream, away from sleep. I mindlessly paint memories of the last time I was there. Characters, people, and places of heightened colour. Feelings of flow and fluidity, that everything is as ephemeral as the holographic projections advertising media mindwash products. Perhaps to the dream people, it is this world, the city which is a dream. A dark one of simplicity and elegance but a horrific one for such as they. Could such creatures exist here in this realm? Could I become one? I take up my nylon brush and apply plastic ink to the recycled polymer canvas. Different grades of canvas take the ink in different ways. Such are the fabrics of these worlds we are grown from. From flesh to imagination. From imagination to flesh.
Sable lays back on her plastic padded mattress and stares up at the neon white glow in motion of a haiku randomizer, the rooms ambient lighting. The place is beautiful in its simplicity. Back and white, and where there is age which speaks of history, sepia and gray. Wabi Sabi, the plays on the psychonic, mental radio-beam.
"white is the quest for purity
stained because the tarnished material we use to depict it
a longing
varnish and belonging"
She tunes out by altering her mental focus, gazing through a slatted perspex window at the city below. Her body tremors, she sniffs the clarity. On a low table occupying the center of her room is her payment, half of it cut early into little white lines that match the cities ambience. Wabi Sabi, the process of incompletion.
She remembers some of the dream from several nights ago, a strange world in which creatures of fantasy, faeries, dance and play amidst a vibrantly coloured forest. Her inner-self, a heart free of mind given freedom to flow as pure instinct. Does time function the same in the dreamworlds? Does time function the same in this city, where everybody autonomously robotic in their lifestyles, clattering like reptilian scales, clockwork machine people, ignoring one another to such extent that each other are invisible unless they share the same vibrational pathway that is the tao of whatever digital catalogue existence was chosen. Is it possible to shift tracks?
The limitations and frustrations of existing within a box, a box within a city made of boxes; pre-packaged people, pre-packaged lifestyles which it is an offense to question or seek to step outside the boundaries of. AI droid-cops float down on insect-like wings and with insect-like mechanical faces of sensors and lasers, ensure we step back on track. They lurk in shadows above and around us, hearing all, watching all, a surveillance society. We live in fear as they study us, fear lest we be extinguished for breaking the laws our ancestors set in place and programmed into these machines. Is it any wonder that our only outlet is to dream?
And in dream we discover such places, dragons and mermaids, a freedom of pine scented air, firefly glow passions. We meet others in the dreams, others from other worlds, other times and places. To transfer this visionary into brushwork, art for retail to sustain myself, to pay for the box and the protection of the droid-cops who keep this city quadrant safe and clean. Outside we are told there are others less fortunate than ourselves, the non-consumers, the non-elite. They live in horror which we cannot understand, the rust-world, the grunge, a decay. They live in animal poverty. We do not think of such things. Only the sleek of our black plastic and white neon lifestyles. How many invisibles are there in this city of perpetual night time? We should to question such things. To question leads to contamination, the breakdown of the social slipstreams we are individually provided for. This machine must not fail.
And so it is that I paint my dreams. Apparently the paintings offer hope to others who have not the ability to access the dreams. For them, the painting is the only insight in to the otherworld. But for me it is a real place. Some day I will find a method to make a transference, away from this world and into the dream completely, that I may exist there permanently.
The white powder from a plant grown in the city labs courses through my veins and keeps me away from the dream, away from sleep. I mindlessly paint memories of the last time I was there. Characters, people, and places of heightened colour. Feelings of flow and fluidity, that everything is as ephemeral as the holographic projections advertising media mindwash products. Perhaps to the dream people, it is this world, the city which is a dream. A dark one of simplicity and elegance but a horrific one for such as they. Could such creatures exist here in this realm? Could I become one? I take up my nylon brush and apply plastic ink to the recycled polymer canvas. Different grades of canvas take the ink in different ways. Such are the fabrics of these worlds we are grown from. From flesh to imagination. From imagination to flesh.
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