Richard Wilkerson*
Medium: Digital Collage
Date: 9-26-2004
I'm in a part of an unknown city that has been in decline for decades, though there are some very large new development projects, high-rise office or condos. Mostly the streets are seedy and I feel very cautious. The newer construction takes place further away and behind fences. I see a little street urchin, darting around the corner and realize I'm in a gang territory and they are keeping an eye on me. I see a few other kids and am surprised by how fast they move, almost as if they can teleport. I find one of the urchins, a small boy about 7or 8yrs old, as he comes around the corner. "How are you moving so fast?" "we don't travel in space," he said, smirking, "we travel between the spaces." I look at the unfinished building girders and realize this group has connected all the spaces somehow between them and were able to travel between things. I go with the boy into an abandoned building and he takes my hand and we are now going down some stairs into a basement. There is an amazing machine there with dozens of connectors and wires coming out. I think I'm suppose to join them by putting on the machine, but am concerned that it might a Kafka punishment apparatus.(*). The boy senses my hesitancy and gently pulls me over and sort of put it on, just enough to show me it won't harm me. I now see other of the urchin gang in the room and decide to join them and put on the head connectors, which is now a kind of EEG like hat. I feel very light headed and again realize, more clearly this time, that these urchins are plugging into the spaces between the connections, and that this disjunctions create their own network. The Urchins are now leaving the basement in a hurry, someone is coming and we all flee. EOD
I had this dream a night after I saw (for the umpteen time) Forbidden Planet at the San Francisco Film in the Fog night, and the device reminded me somewhat of the trainer machine of the Krell. More recently, I got an article from Ed Kellogg called "Reading Kafka Improves Learning" Science Daily Sept 16, 2009 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090915174455.htm which reminded me of this dream, which I've tried to quickly render for the PDC 2009.
(*) In the Penal Colony, by Franz Kafka, there was a punishment machine that would, over days, write into the flesh of the prisoner his sentence, which sometimes resulted in death. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Penal_Colony
Collage: Disjunctive Urchin Machine 2009 RCW (collage, some photos not by RCW)
Images may not be used, copied, transmitted or reproduced in whole or in part in any form
nor may they or any part of them be stored in a retrieval system of any nature
without written permission from the individual artist.