Status Updates From The Floating World

103 pages of… not much

Oof this is bad

‘It’s no longer about making the shit disappear, it’s about distributing it—Most of the world has been eating shit for a very long time, the shit that people like you produce. You’re only worried now because the proportion of people who must eat the shit is increasing, to the point that it might soon include you—History arcs toward the production of shit, and civilisation is a competition about who has to eat it.’

‘That’s why you see them cringing in the corner of Renaissance paintings—their names over the doors of museums—terrified of death, because their money can’t save them—they know in their heart of hearts—It was the birds who alerted me—orange blossoms—jasmine—Time concertinaed,—the metaphorical truck preserved some semblance of order—My head was filled w/ its song—Whatever it was, I felt light in body & empty in mind.’

‘—Floating World—a sustainable, holistic, homeostatic community for—people who want insurance against the end of the world—That’s what you are here for—to keep the stakeholders happy & the funders on board—None of these people give a shit about the actual work—as long as the story suits them. They know nothing about art—beyond its function—That’s how markets work, that’s how contemporary art works—stories, stories,—’

‘M said—nothing is ever lost in this world—Here was a place—I knew nothing & which knew nothing of me—there was no risk of bumping into someone to whom I owed allegiance or affection. For the first time in years, I felt free—I understand that I might be accused of romanticising a place that was even then synonymous with crisis—Rising out of an ex–industrial wasteland like a giant sugar cube dropped from the heavens—’

‘Reith’s—housed in an extension paid for by a pharmaceutical company’s success in addicting millions of people to opioids—air—inhaled by children in Hackney—in direct proportion to the poisoning of our atmosphere—I hadn’t realised that art could be so at odds with the idea of itself, that it might advocate for its own extinction—this counterfeit of death with its everywhere rage—its moribund culture—smug population—’

‘—I planted a tree—A magnolia,—fond memories of the flowers that used to enliven South LDN—Probably I should go down to the village to use the Wi-Fi—A was the only employee,—we walked through an arbor threaded with honeysuckle, payments not having cleared since the crash—keep the plants alive through the winter—would the tree bloom—white flowers in the spring? The moon was new in the sky—a recurring dream—marmalade—’