Skeleton for Future Art Forms

Part VI — Distorted notes after Extreme Presence, Hartwig Art Foundation, Proxy, Amsterdam.

Amsterdam. After Extreme Presence.

Medieval weather moving through the nervous system.

Suspicion & Magic.

Everybody dressed for the end of something.

Somebody selling admission to whatever comes next.

Who makes the sun rise?

Ask again.

Listen to what happens inside the question.

Do we feel the need to believe?

Our tongues rest in palaces of hope.

Soft machinery behind teeth.

Our mouth hides the mystery of creation.

Open it and something escapes.

A name. A command. An invitation that changes the arrangement of bodies in a room. Let there be …

An answer appears.

We read it.

Hesitate. Ask again.

Offer more of ourselves.

Become irritated when something is misunderstood.

Relieved when a sentence seems to recognise what we could barely articulate.

The screen remains where it was.

Our position has shifted.

Do angels understand our world?

Can they account for every movement of the sea and still misunderstand a person standing at its edge?

What would an intelligence without consciousness understand of the journey?

Could it know everything about the stone and remain a stranger to the hand holding it?

Describe trembling, says the machine.

Give up this self. Another will be provided.

Good morning, techno-self.

Your predecessor left some clothes.

The apocalyptic feeling arrives through a familiar interface.

Accept the terms.

Recover your password.

Upload a clearer image of your face.

We imagined fire.

There is still time for fire.

For now, a spinning wheel and the peculiar intimacy of being addressed.

Tell us what we can become.

The answer comes quickly.

The body carrying the question needs longer.

Mysticism in expensive shoes. Theology at the coat check.

Medieval philosophy scrolling beneath an advertisement for eternal youth.

Beyond the celestial portals of flame stand two bouncers.

Names?

Nabuurs&VanDoorn.

Purpose of visit?

Teleportation!

They check the list.

We dance in a choreography of not knowing.

Somebody has found a use for our longing to continue.

Do angels understand our world?

Could they understand grief without anyone being absent?

Could they recognise the particular silence of a person who will never answer again?

Our tongue rests in a palace of hope.