14,600 and counting …

Detail of Ryoji Ikeda “DB” (author’s hand not part of the artwork), at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, April 2012

Dear anonymous reader,
You appear now and then. You are many, 14,600 and more have encountered this page. You seem to be perusing it’s content at length, clicking on links and other material. You are a citizen of the States, of Canada, of Brunei, Turkey, Latvia, Venezuela, the Russian Federation, Mongolia, Japan, Singapur, Australia and many more countries. And you are nothing but a trace in the data stream. A figure, a character set, an evanescence that soon disappears. You are not a person.

I am not blogging on my puppy, my recipes, my musings on life (or what you take for it). You are looking for symbolic exchange and yet even after you read the definitions here you are incapable of it. Your interest is opaque, your collection of data traces remains unseen on the front end. The text you weave is det.er.:iOratIng# every second. This channel is one-way and you are the receiver. As I am, too.

In all its open visibility, this blog as millions of others is obscure and hidden in traffic of restless bits chasing each other around the globe, millions of times a day. The data packages that come together in you machine are not mine, not anybody’s. They will never meet, they are resend if they fail to arrive. In a life form like this chance encounters are the rule and unlikely. If neurons were conscious they would ask for a relief pill.

 

Patterns of Moving in Space

Global Drive

Enclosed in this space is the frame. The walls and bolts, plaster and tapestries. Here is a door. A transition occurs. From the enclosed space to the open space of the city. But the city is not mere chaos, it’s structure, pattern, possibilities and impasses, gates, fences, thruways, alternate routes. Their number is limited. For the duration of five minutes my movement succumbs to the pattern of the street. This crossing, that street light. I don’t need to decide.

That door is locked, another is open. I pass by without noticing. The street commands my attention. The bus stop is crowded with people all assembled in more or less the same distance to the side of the road. Waiting. I wait, too. Now, I wait, don’t need to make decisions. TXL, M29, U9, U2. Prepare for the bus, get the ticket, move in with the crowd. Minimal distance, maximum aversion. Acceleration. For the duration of the ride, I don’t care for the detours, blocked passage ways, construction sites, alternative routes. Even the others remain outside to a degree, similar in their desire and yet different altogether.

Another corridor, exchange of data, documents, smiles and reassurance. The gateway is open. Terminal 1, I34, A19, 36G. It’s all structures, patterned, predictable. Drinks and snacks. Papers. Behind the counter, a welcoming and exchangeable smile of local color. This seat is now my home, the wall becomes a friend. Regulation of bodies suspended in space, removed from the ground. Extreme acceleration. But for the time of the flight, I don’t need to worry about weather conditions, airflow, pressure variations and the thousands of expert controls which regulate the passage.

Ueno Koen (上野公園)

Corridors, hallways, counters and transitional spaces: TXL, NRT, BA 365. The shapes change, the structure remains the same. 8:45, Platform 4, destination Ueno, JR Lines Express, 1,000¥, one-way, this coach, this seat, a view of the landscape. Exit 4, Uenokachimachi, Uenokoen. The pond looks like three years ago in spring. The bench could be any bench, anywhere else. But this is Tokyo. A city built around the vast homogeneous structure of moving smoothly in space. On all levels of the city, the patterns remain stable – to secure the passage.