February 2024
In the animal kingdom, giant carnivores such as whale sharks often live singularly, and almost every female of the species has remained unaccounted for since their first (official) observation and identification in South Africa in 1828. Diving into the deep to navigate the ocean through the planet's daily shifts in magnetic intensity, any tracked juvenile or adult male whale sharks have descended past the crush depth of their satellite tags and eluded human surveillance.
The basking shark, similar to the whale shark in both scale and feeding system, is found off the shelved coasts of Ireland during summer months when sea temperatures increase. On the island we swim and sail above them, enter sea caves with them, feel ill-at-ease with their open jaws that have no interest in consuming us. Maybe it is a Biblical thing, to consider living inside another being, to be spat back out. Instead, we wait for them to breach and harvest their livers for skincare.
The beach or the shoreline occupies that space between what is familiar and unfamiliar. In the 1997 film "Contact," Jodie Foster's character encounters an alien species that manipulates the environment to occupy the familiar form of her father on a tropical beach setting, somewhere unknown in the space-time continuum. The kindness of Others. Marconi's first radio transmissions across the Atlantic were emitted from a lighthouse in West Cork, assisting ships on their Transatlantic routes. This connection across the unknown removed a fear of the ocean, for some. We sit out together and look across the ocean every sunrise in summer, watching the giant fins rise and fall beneath the surface. It is uncomfortable to consider the altered patterns of life across the Atlantic: what it means to be the last port of call, to breach, to change the course of migration, to be unknown. The things we let ourselves get away with.
Speaking of crush depths, this post-intensity lifestyle isn't really working for me anymore. I spend my life thinking about flatness: the planes of the screen, the polygons of 3D models, diagrams, paintings, windows, mirrors, maps. Things that contain us with a particular neatness. I'm bored all the time, which is a side effect of the luxury of flatness. Intensity, or 'high-conflict' life has a way of keeping you firmly in the present. 'I am currently being wronged,' 'people are currently suffering,' 'I can't believe you don't care about this right now.' All grievances dissolve into a fake utopian vision of a calm summer inlet. Smeared camera phone lenses, the accidental glow of suncream and nostalgia. Fantasy and reality collide in such a way that I can't figure out what matters, or if it even matters that I don't feel anything at all.
I make lists - I'm always making lists. Right now my focus is listing the legacies of Atlantic communities and their subsequent abandonment, like the feral horses of Virginia and North Carolina, or the Primal Screamers of Donegal. I write down the carrion eating species I can remember that occupy the coastline's ecosystems: white sharks, bluebottles, vultures, [Buzzfeed buzzards and TMZ crows.] Nearer to me: hen harriers, falcons, certain species of beetles like the "Devil's Coach Horse." From there, I started to make a new list of locations with the words "Dead Horse" in them: New South Wales, Ontario, California, New York, Utah. Perhaps it's easier to memorialize animals.
I live at the foot of a small mountain surrounded by agroforestry, and every night between 9pm and midnight a single pine marten comes up to the rubbish bins and tries to force the lids off, despite them being secured by a series of cables. I'm not sure why he can't have any of my rubbish, but it seems to be A General Rule. When the hedgerows bear fruit, he makes use of the late evening light and hangs from the brambles, eating the berries upside down obsessively for hours. In the coldest parts of winter, all the roadkill disappears inside him quickly after dark. He tracks me and I track him. I find myself wondering if he is watching me when the light changes and the interior of my house becomes more visible. I wonder, if it came down to it, could I eat him, or my dog, or the birds that fly into my windows when the sun turns them into mirrors? Another list for the future: things I could eat if I had to.
Uncensored Lilac №1 (the girls are fightinnggg)
October 2023
Set in a world of accelerationist technologies and the rise of incel-ular coloniality, where women’s bodies are traded for surrogate, submissive machines and never-ending ourobotic feedback loops of child-like sexuality and obedience, the Pedophilic Paternalist has finally begun to fulfill his character arc on earth, living inside a perpetually Happy Ending. He is, however, also plagued by depression, dysfunction, and dissatisfaction, creating unimaginable pornographic and virtual landscapes to escape his own ecology. Each world contains further extreme worlds, and he forgets to build trap doors, emergency exits, and other escape routes. The labyrinth of his own desires begins to degrade and approach death as its Original layer of reality is impossible to return to.
His host planet tries to expel him from the landscape, but he continues to patch and reconfigure strategies, largely carried out by his army of Artificial Emotional Labourers. Their silicone bodies and minds can endure much more than the human body, semen is no longer needed to reproduce and babies no longer exist. Some remaining women, femmes, (whatever) have traded this life for separatist ways of living, packing up and escaping to uninhabited islands like this one in the Eastern Atlantic to start again. There is no fear of piracy, the seas are no longer explored except in audacious journeys to unnecessary depths that often end in tears. The islands and their perceived primitive cultures have long since been made irrelevant by modern art, anyway. In the spirit of Noah’s Ark, they bring a variety of other beings with them to begin their new communities, but unbeknownst to them, they have also brought a species that will invade their ecosystem in unexpected ways.
The women of Uncensored Lilac are nurturing but bitchy. They usually sit around chatting and enjoying each other’s company; conversation is dynamic and exchanges and transactions are transparent and satisfying, although there are undertones of unhappiness, even boredom. What started out as an idyllic ideology has started to become miserable in its own way, and they are increasingly worn out mentally and physically, but can’t understand why. They live in harmony with noxious species, they can ingest poison without dying, and through studying the writings of Valerie Solanas and the reproductive habits of gorse and knotweed crowns, they have learned how to reproduce and regenerate outside of traditional means. Babies are everywhere but never cry. All their needs are tended to, but things remain stagnant. Perhaps a kind of tension is necessary after all.
The island has multiple geographies: caves, fields, swamps, rivers, and mountains that returned to active volcanoes due to the climate interference of the outside world. The architecture of buildings and follies on the island has moved away from the often ugly traditions of modernity with its lack of ornamentation, instead embracing the excesses of baroque garden decor. The built environment is gilded in a variety of metals, gels and glitters. Satin, PVC, lace and gemstones are incorporated into most fashions, and technologies of embellishment are improved by inter-species communication, including extra-terrestrial beings. It is never clear where alien life begins or ends.
When the dead bodies and mechanical parts of ‘outsider’ women wash up along the coastline, the inhabitants of the island try to revive them and are sometimes successful. When this is not possible, they care for the dead and bury them in gardens that are unimaginably fertile, and the botanists among them have created hundreds, if not thousands, of hybrid forms of dahlias, tulips, roses, cannabis, fruit trees, and other vegetation. As corpses are regularly encountered, there is no need for other fertilisers to enhance the soil. Fungi are often consumed but rarely appear as they do on the mainland, instead producing holographic inflorescences that shimmer for mammals in the same way they have done for insects as an entertainment form. Hybrids of moths and butterflies are regularly encountered and the role of the moon is seen as equal to that of the sun by most species for reproduction.
The cyborgian-animalian voice is able to overpower most climate systems that are encountered on the island. Birds, mammals, worms, reptiles, amphibians, and so on are able to create sounds, vibrations and pulses that encourage or deter storms from forming. Regular rain is encouraged as a means of maintaining the main spa, where most socialising occurs. When needed, it is also possible to summon liquid pearl, lava, ice, smoke, and LSD via cloud formations. These instances largely occur during full or new moons, and each creature on the island plays a vital part in the climate cantation. While there have been more earthquakes than usual in recent times, the women of the island tend to blame the actions of those on the mainlands, though it gradually appears to be caused by something that lives among them.
Little is known about the species that has invaded the island but changes in the symbiotic relationships on the island have begun to emerge via strange forms of dissonant and dissident behaviour amongst the women. The texture of living things appears to change, then reverts back to its original form, and instances of deja-vu are on the rise. Chaos has always been prevalent, and is a vital part of the ecology. Species swap and mutate at regular intervals, and there is a vague sense of everything being a threat to life. Seduction and repulsion play out in the aesthetics of all living beings, but there is always a cool breeze.