Utopia Supplement
Fag Tips for Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst
A few years ago, I met a man in a park. Later, he asked what I was working on, and I explained “the name of a street draws the present into the past, just as in the present moment the street name gathers a discontinuous series of spaces into one sensibly continuous space. The pavement and paving orders the world only as the name does.” He sighed, and asked what I meant and I said, “one end of the street has little do with the other besides the name.”
In bed with another man, this one I met on a train, he tells me: “a street is not a route, a road is not the path. The story is always distinct from the matter. The matter influences the story, the roads we take have names.” After sex, we lie together, smelling of each other, having forgetten the train we met on, me having forgotten his name. Incidentally, as he is leaving, he puts on my socks, taking with this gesture the fullness of the evening. I will never forget the sock, I tell myself, forgetting this entire encounter. The matter influences the story, the roads we take have names. The story is not the media, the path is not the street—the journey is evermore indistinct when clouded by the names of the roads we take. An assemblage of discontinuities, a path inscribed with signs meant for those of us who forget.
In bed with another man, this one I met on a train, he tells me: “a street is not a route, a road is not the path. The story is always distinct from the matter. The matter influences the story, the roads we take have names.” After sex, we lie together, smelling of each other, having forgetten the train we met on, me having forgotten his name. Incidentally, as he is leaving, he puts on my socks, taking with this gesture the fullness of the evening. I will never forget the sock, I tell myself, forgetting this entire encounter. The matter influences the story, the roads we take have names. The story is not the media, the path is not the street—the journey is evermore indistinct when clouded by the names of the roads we take. An assemblage of discontinuities, a path inscribed with signs meant for those of us who forget.
More information at the Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst website.
Special thanks for the translations to Erfan Aboutalebi, Onur Çimen, Aria Farajnezhad, Zainab Haidary, Hatem Hegab, Shirin Mohammad, Alex Piasente-Szymański, Jake Schneider, Abdulghaffar Tammaa, Fritz Laszlo Weber
Special thanks for the translations to Erfan Aboutalebi, Onur Çimen, Aria Farajnezhad, Zainab Haidary, Hatem Hegab, Shirin Mohammad, Alex Piasente-Szymański, Jake Schneider, Abdulghaffar Tammaa, Fritz Laszlo Weber