Kirjahaku

So yes, this were a necessary piece for me to write. Not to take control of the narrative: for, I neither believe in there being only one version of any story, despite what dictators would prefer; nor in control, another fiction people who give themselves titles aplenty like to hold on to. But in order to respond to violence with art. With all the risks of being accused - ah, hello again, old friend - of being accused of artem, of artifice. So I shall write, with my kind of writing.At the risk of being accused of writing itself - that taking down, inscribing, recording, taking note, is nothing more than a deferral, a refusal to remember me. So, a writing to forget.Perhaps. Though it is not as if one can decide what one forgets, that one can will forgetting: if we could, we might all finally be happy. But we might just have to leave that to happenstance, chance, maybe even to Tykhe herself. In the meantime, all I can say is: quod scripsi, scripsi.

On Invisibility attempts to meditate on the relationality between the seen and unseen, known and unknowable, particularly when in relation with an other, when grappling - in touch with - another. This text opens the dossier that, whilst seemingly antonyms, invisibility is part of visibility; that each act of seeing is fraught with the possibility of blindness. And more than that, relationality with another is premised on this very unknowability. Which is why, not only does one encounter jiu-jitsu through practice, praxis; not only does one encounter jiu-jitsu through an encounter with the other; part of it always escapes us, remains enigmatic. Thus, not only is it arte suave, it is always also potentially arte bela. So, even as we attempt to address the question what is jiu-jitsu, part of it will always remain beyond us. Which might be why we have no choice but to turn to art: for, all that we know, can see, of jiu-jitsu will be fragments of it - sketches.

This text attempts to respond to the question of the relationship between art and resistance, to the possibility of art as resistance -- that is, it is an attempt to meditate on the possible relationship between resisting and art. Whilst doing so, it also tries to attend to the notion that art is an encounter -- between one and something that is brought forth in the movement from craft to something other than what is created through tekhnē. And, if so, it is always also potentially unknown, unknowable, until it happens, perhaps even after it happens. That, even as it might be experienced, felt -- an encounter through aisthesis -- it is quite possibly a moment beyond cognition; un pas au-del , as it were. And if so, then perhaps all attempts to know it potentially do nothing other than to frame, to confine, its potentiality.Thus, perhaps the very thing that one has to do -- if one is to attempt to maintain the possibility of resistance in art -- is to resist what one thinks art itself is.

Our skin --all over us, inside us;multiple, divisible, same same but different; different in parts within, and all over, the same self; a multiplicity. And where, it is our scars -- that write themselves onto us, the keloids that hold us, claw us (khele) together -- which give us form (eidos). Without which, there is no possibility of even knowing (eidenai), catching a glimpse of, our very self. The skin upon which I write, upon which I writhe. Which writhes on me as I write. As I am writing skin.

In which one can never quite tell if a thought that comes to one came from one, had arrived onto one, or if one might have merely slid to it, drifted into it. Where, the very notion of having a thought might well only be thought teasing one. And where, teasing out a thought always already opens one self to being teased.

It is so very frustrating, makes one almost want to scream - petulantly, childishly even - that it is a deeply unfair world when the one you most want to speak to, to be with, is the very one you can't.Particularly when calling out to you is not so much the thing I cannot do (of course one always can) but the very thing one shouldn't. For, one should try not to forget that - even as it might pain one to do so - words are missiles that explode in your somatic being.Where sending them out might cause damage, even bring ruin;and keeping them in, be catastrophic.I suppose one might say you helped send me on a path towards the beautiful, opened in me the possibility of catching a glimpse of beauty -three stepson the ladderof writhing

i'm not ghosting you is a bricolage of poetry, prose, and photography that attempts to explore the notion of ghosts in our lives in its various permutations, some of which manifest more clearly (when someone ghosts you by disappearing from your life) and others much less so (how even when someone has ghosted you, their ghosts remain to haunt you, often in ways that you might not even realise, that only occasionally flicker, often at the most unexpected of moments ... as traces to be read).It is also an attempt to meditate through fiction; for, one can never approach ghosts directly. And, where a medium is usually what is needed.Which also means we are always attempting to reach what is innermost in us through translation, and in translation. Where what we consider our most familiar, our haunts at which we hang out with friends, might also be what is most unfamiliar, and un-familial, to us, what occasionally even spooks us, is uncanny in its familiar-unfamiliarity; but also something - a place, a space, a memory - from which we can never really get away./I'm not ghosting you is a collection where the "me" and the "I" telling it are not only not necessarily always the same, but sometimes appear strange to, estranged from, each other. This is quite possibly why song lyrics play such a crucial role in this tale, even as they seem to be 'mere asides'. For, songs and music often make their way into us in ways we remain blind to; where we discover (sometimes as a shock, even as a rude awakening) that we know the lyrics to a tune we never thought we'd like, that we never even really knew we know ... they inscribe themselves into us in white ink, occasionally allowing us to catch a glimpse of them, but perhaps always playing on our B-sides - maybe haunting, maybe even nurturing us - in the background of ourselves.