Hynek Alt Untitled (Infrastructures, Beach & a Porcelain Skin)

Hynek Alt Untitled (Infrastructures, Beach & a Porcelain Skin)

I think that the last line of ketamine was one too many. Yet I vaguely recall - scraping the remnants of my operating power - that it was actually the only one today, or during this week, how could I be even able to remember, anyway.* ———————— *Footnote 1**: This is not a story about drug addiction. Or romanticization of drug use (on the contrary, we are incredibly pragmatic). Or about drugs per se. Drugs are approached here as an exemplary substitute for questions relating to means of production, or better put, ways of keeping the given means in line despite various disadvantageous circumstances.

Time became confusing in a very organized and systematic fashion. Contradictions included. There are many distinctive categories at hand to differentiate and be used to analyze the given inputs, all fitting into specific categories. Everything was already pre-defined and carefully stored in corresponding drawers. Still, all the elements at play can function as fitting pieces of a puzzle in any place you decide to put them. They form a pattern, almost as a carefully woven tapestry. A horizontal salon show.* ———————— *Footnote 2: If there is the true precursor to the current messed-up state of the art world, it is undoubtedly the medium of the salon exhibition. The ultimate feast of consumerism, both in the sense of distribution and to-your-face showcase of one's wealth. Here, our use the term proposes its appropriation and burial deep in the ground. Lie down and die, you piece of art historical trash!

Their physicality gives an impression of softness, smooth, evenly lid skin. Despite the potential folds performing naturally with every interaction. These are not typical baroque folds, even though their richness would allow for those. Instead, these folds are referencing a sentiment of fallen modernist dreams. And you just can’t experience that softness with your own fingertips. Their surfaces are rough and almost painful when you reach out to them, with your hungry yet exhausted sight, activating the last brainpower left.

* * *

One single fraction of a second making an incision in our collective memory lasting for generations renewed when the healing process seems to be reaching its culmination. An explosion. The explosion. The catastrophic failure of the O-rings seals.

* * *

A couple of days marking a unique, unrepeatable experience of connection to what lies beneath. An asphalt torn from the otherwise compact fabric of a city, a seemingly random yet precisely selected surgical cut into the veins of your street.

* * *

It takes just a few moments to come. However, finding the right stimuli for easy masturbation requires a complex search through a literally endless repository of available material. Various forms of decisions need to be taken. Starting from the original wishful search for ethical porn, yet the pressure growing inside and all those paywalls at the end bring you to the usual pornhub engine.* ———————— *Footnote 3: Even though this segment might sound conformist regarding the usage of porn, it also explores various forms of emancipation. It speaks of sex workers as natural elements of the capitalistic machine, willingly using their bodies as means of production. It also addresses potentiality for porn users, who use it similarly as they would use a cigarette, a piece of chocolate, or another episode of a random YouTube clip, merely to keep their bodies functional to stay productive without unnecessary tensions.

* * *

Sentiment and fuzzy understanding of history allow for a subjective contextual interpretation of the depicted urban hub. You want to experience certainty, yet without the relevant Wikipedia articles at hand*, everything stays quite blurry all that time before you decide to give up trying and move on. ———————— *Footnote 4: I read this: [Wiki: History of the United States (1980–1991)], you do you.

* * *

This is not you, we are outside of the realm of shared experiences, yet the forms seem so familiar. This is a lifetime of work. This is someone’s legacy. Forgotten. Sustained. Revisited. Reinterpreted. Recontextualized. Lifted up. Appropriated and reborn. Levitation.* ———————— *Footnote 5: Throwing a head of Columbus - or any random slave owner for that matter - into a lake might be a reference here, but a very inadequate and misleading one. This is much more personal, much more soft and delicate. Le-vi-ta-tion. Not a formative historical rearrangement.

* * *

That last line of ketamine was one too many. Or did I misplaced the bags and took coke instead? I just don’t know anymore.* ———————— *Footnote 6: …maybe it could be a bit romantic, actually.

* * *

It is all printed and multiplied. The relevance of time dissipated. Or better put - all those different time frames, subjectivities, and fragments of collective remembrance - gradually synchronized into one smooth porcelain skin. Time is no more, only endless reproductions of various surfaces unified into one whole surface.* ———————— *Footnote 7: Never-ending story. Or rather: determinism. No matter how hard you try to find any potentiality of the next narrative step, you’re being served only what you already know—the pleasure and pain of mass reproduction.

Horizontal. The oscillation you might still feel is but a remnant of something long gone. The vertical axis brings a sensation of relief. But they are just frames for the experience underneath. All are exchangeable, and all are constantly transmuting into the other. These are projection screens. For you. For your sensitivity. For your subjective understanding. For your personal appreciation. This is your skin. So embrace it. ———————— **These footnotes are not meant to fulfill the true sense of their typical role. They lack the ambition to explain, add references, or context. They instead open up a dialog within the text itself. They propose layered reading relevant to the understanding of the presented work itself. So meta. Jesus.

Jen Kratochvil Supported by Slovak Arts Council.