The following text was commissioned
by Ariadna Guiteras for the performance Tortuga.
by Ariadna Guiteras for the performance Tortuga.
The Organism
There were tall potted plants lining the limits of the hangar. I ran my fingers through their fronds whenever I passed, wondering, as always, who had decided to put them there and congratulating them on their decision in my mind.
Every time I did this I lifted the residue of chalk that rested on the waxy leaves. I wasn’t sure where the chalk came from but I would watch it tickle as it entered into the lights we were making and disappear as it travelled into fissures in the atmosphere.
Touching one another so as not to lose our rhythm we turned, rolled apart, still in contact, stayed in touch, pushed back, pulled forth. A routine we’d learnt from birth, a role we were born into. We then reconnected, plugged in, delivered our charge, moved on, moved upwards, pulled back, pushed forth.
It was compulsory work, life in the organism demanded it. The life of the organism depended on it. We took it in turn, worked to a rota, conscription, community.
Touching one another so as not to lose our focus we ascended. A line of lights appeared on the horizon, and we released them into the future. Up there they glided, blissful, sated, happy, satisfied. The organism was replete and we were ready to work again. Catch and release, Catch and hold.
We dove our hands into the flare furnace. The brickwork was orange in that light, the purple went lilac in the light we’d created, held steadfastly, resisted, resisted, resisted, turned.
Descending again, our shoulders touching their shoulders, it was cold inside the organism, so we kept close together. We were a society that looked after one another. A hand on a shoulder, a belly cradled, passage eased, promises kept. Burst forth, set to.
A body, a multiple, working like a rumour, a generation of questioning from the ardour of the system. Affect and pre-violence, particles moving constantly, affects moving in space.
We kept working, our hands bathed in light, our fingers knitted together. Throbbing between the organism and them, the organism and the light, the light and them. The bulbs of our knuckles shuddered as the pulse past along them. We all felt as though they must swell with the energy that they were creating, but they knew that this was a trick of the mind. Enclose, include.
They passed the light to the others. The others passed the light to them. They paused, they stepped, the organism bowed, the organism ushered them forward. Circle, encircle, occlude and circlude.
It was cold inside the organism, but we worked without gloves so that we could properly feel the light, trace its contours to meld it and mold it, the light breathed warmth back into our fingertips, whispered charges into the knuckles but without the light our hands ached and throbbed, and we sensed one another’s pain in hands empurpled and moaning.
Carrying our light we cross the hangar, the sky vast in front of us, the stars carrying their own light met our gaze. We looked at what we had made, basked in the light we had created. Held, like a raindrop, then released into the future. We looked at one another, eyes fizzed with the afterglow, we saw stars in front of the stars.
We waited and watched the others release their light. They drifted back down. We were shadowed by snatches of their conversation. We drifted back down. Over our shoulders we could hear other conversations, but couldn’t look around to see what was being said, to see who was saying what.
Back in our quarters we stripped off, remembering the way the light had felt under our fingers we touched one another, skin tingling, warmed up, touched.