I suppose it is submerged memories that give to dreams their curious air of hyper-reality. But perhaps there is something else as well, something nebulous, gauze-like, through which everything one sees in a dream seems, paradoxically, much clearer. A pond becomes a lake, a breeze becomes a storm, a handful of dust is a desert, a grain of sulphur in the blood is a volcanic inferno. What manner of theatre is it, in which we are at once playwright, actor, stage manager, scene painter and audience?
(Sebald, W.G. The Rings of Saturn, 1995/1998)
The confluence of two pools recessed within the architectural spaces of a public civic square and of the museum, echoing and enfolding chambers of knowledge (governance) where we swim.
Float.
Sink.
Swim.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sebald writes of herring: “One dependable sign that herring are present is said to be myriads of scales floating on the surface of the water, shimmering like tiny silver tiles by day and sometimes at dusk resembling ashes or snow.”
Yesterday, over dim sum, Claire and I share our experiences of our respective doctoral research-creation programs. She graciously considers the pools I am photographing as workable metaphors – pooling together staff, people and communities
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>-- in our collective and non-linear making and re-making… seems we are learning from the similar books.
In this way, she opens up the view of the glitch panoramic and its relational text as mere narrative device or tool.
And the pool as a metaphor in architectural or spacial terms (ie in the square, in the museum, in the institution), is liquidity, a high volume of activity with things, people, times.
With her own work, Claire offers drawing as embodiment, transfer of histories, and a deepened sense of time.
This above darkness is like good wet sand, or clay moving through our fingers and toes. Alternately, it might be a phantom image left on a vcr/older technology. It is a satellite image of deep space or a cold planet’s surface. It could be warm therapeutic mud. It could be night time lake’s ripple and moonlight glow. It may be black ink on aluminums. Oil slick. Inside pipes draining the toilet to septic tank. Satin skirt with cigarette burns and smoke. Tobacco leaves. Some herring bottom left.
glitch16, nov 24, 2021
text, june 17, 2022