lightningstracks

[lightningstracks]

TICKS

It feels strange. To not know what to do with all this change. To long for it, to yearn with every cell, every follicle of hair and then as the days churn, to be affronted with ‘I don’t care’.

To never understand the list that rolls beneath or to understand it but never quite get to grips with the way that the list dominates. The way the list shakes, spitting and steaming through happiness, leaving in its wake: dystopia.

Beneath the soft surface of a smile broken out of madness exists on rotation about one million questions.

And I can’t turn them off, not even for a moment. The voices that pound the amygdala of indecision, of strange and wrongful imagining. I can’t quieten this feeling that if I make a slip up now, if I fuck up somehow, if I roll headfirst into the shit cloud then here I will be forever; incarcerated.

Stuck, overlooking.

          Lost, only hoping.

Come! You say, frolic here with me; just for the day!

But you see I can’t. Quieten, these voices that keep me going, push me back and keep me going. Keep me believing in what I think it takes to be a proper human being. This is what it takes to be a proper, right? To never be able to turn them off, so that when you take a break, when you stop doing all the real work —the manual labour— it’s actually harder to breathe.

Suffocated by the noise of what I should be doing instead of this reprieve.

That in my mind when I lie on this floor, or I walk through that door or even when I swim through wildly idyllic scenery, in my mind I am caught on a spinning sea of anxiety.

It’s easier you see, to be fighting, you see.

To be caught in the bruise, in the battle, the quagmire of feeling tired. The great sea of words that roll over one another as I attempt to describe using language to hide. Seeking approval in the worst possible place so that I can avoid that face, the sad one, the one that means you’re disappointed. The one that means you’ve done it again, you’ve spent too much time up there in your brain.

I told you it would be like this, if you kept giving reality a miss.

I told you it would be like this if you turned off all the noise, all the booming, banging beats of friends and parents and eats.

But you didn’t listen, you just kept on going. One foot in front of the other to become something that memory won’t forgo, to become something that we will never know.

       Will never truly understand.

This ray turns into the next only each produces its own distinct memory. Vitamin D drenched dawning awakens a new sort of mourning.

What use has the list when there is no one to hear it? Witness it’s ticking.

When fresh light crashes heavily into onanistic disgraces and yet another day full of devoured opportunity erases, what has come before.

And I will fight, I will go on, continuing to answer to the ticks that make me complete for no reason other than to deplete this worry that each new darling tacks onto my skin. This agonising tingle, shudder or jolt —aren’t we supposed to be making a better world to live in?

Old fear oozes from every pore: that with all this knowledge, with all these gains I should be helping, should be trying, should be fighting and yet here I am just fucking writing.

[lightningstracks]

And this skin.

Bulges and bursts.

Vile, inversions of hair. They manifest.

In ways only love will bear.

Sweat drips and calves grip.

Hold this wobbling mass now.

Hold it tight between the thighs and writhe.

Naked, alone, somehow.

The body does all it can.

The mind shuts. Atrophied sluts, inappropriate.

Roving desires and trailing over tempestuous moment.

Get me off. Get me off.

Release the grip of desire.

It’s now or never.

Roll over, windows open. Raging fire.

Wind on.

Red flesh touches sheets.

Sweat drips. Autarkic.

In between toes and elbows.

Under knees and sheathes, fountains of bloodlust.

[lightningstracks]

I BEGIN TO GO WEAK

And the thing is. The thing is. I just want to write to you, I just want to write to you. I want to write all of this down and send it to you, reader, and I don’t know why. I just want to write to you. Not in my head but with my hands and my heart.

I want to write to you, to vomit all of this up, eject the way my body feels right now. Structure-less, free, I fly untethered on an abundance of time. Incarcerated by the negativity of my own mind. Time —that unruly thing— now spirals: a heavy burden.

I want to write about the weight of this time and of my bare feet clenching the floor, the weight of my body, this body, that feels disconnected to me from morning to night. The fear of the weight of my body and the way it feels disconnected to me.

I want to write all this down so that somehow I will get closer to me. I want to air it all, shout into the vacuum, the empty space in between and get closer to me. I want to tell you so that you can bear witness to me. I want to be heard, by you.

And the thing is.

I don’t know who you are.

But the stinging, sweaty nerve endings in my stomach do and they somersault at the thought.

They spin in mind-blowing circles at thinking about you. I begin to go weak, knees shake and heart breaks at the thought of you. You, mystical you.

[lightningstracks]

HERE I AM

Angry and getting…angrier. There is a burden it seems to understand why I frequently want to break peoples knees. Leave them in the past and move forward really fucking fast. I just don’t want to be here anymore you see, in this body that was given to me. I just don’t want to be here but HERE I AM. Send help.

Tiredness defines me as I slug my way towards the unknown, eyes half shut body half cut. I must pretend now. Have to open myself up now to this gender mess somehow. Drenching all of you, all of you in blame for making me feel this way. When really it’s fucking clear to say I’m the one holding the mother-load of shame. Send help. HERE I AM.

And it’s not loads to ask. I want to leave this old body that acts as a mask, a cloak that covers up what I really want you to see. There are limited ways for me to do that. I can’t wear men’s clothes without feeling like a bit of a twat, dressed up in a fancy dress outfit. That there are days when I will stand in front of the mirror for hours because I can’t bear to see myself naked unless I’m in the shower. Send help. HERE I AM.

Mental, mad, a lunacy has taken over me they say. Rich and ripe and in between lucid extremes of blood-lust dreams. One day. I will run away. Tempted from the moment I decided, that one day I will run far away. And I’ll say it was all just too much and the way out was easier and then one day. I will run away. Send help. HERE I AM.

I went to find my people, I went to be proud. Went to march alongside those that look like me and shout out loud! HERE I AM. But what happened didn’t enlighten me. In fact, all it did was frighten me. As I walked and walked amongst those that I am supposed to be alike the experience was just a little bit trite. Because I don’t really want to be looked at and high fived. In fact the whole time I was thinking how do I hide? Send help, HERE I AM.

[lightningstracks]

SUMMER’S SWAMP

As I light up and knock back, as I hustle and bustle through this and that and I think about all the ways I can stop you in your tracks and exclaim my discomfort. My complete and utter unease at being referred to as a she. That within the ‘they’ there is no freedom of expression, I don’t know what to do with google’s definition of what it feels like to be what I think that maybe I am.

Emptiness contains me and in this moment of complete and utter shame drenched self-flagellation I desire. Not sex or wine, not food or fags, not anything that this mind repeatedly again and again, offers up as solutions to the crisis, the drought.

NO, I desire, I desire to be heard.

I desire as I have never desired in any other capacity, the desire to be heard. To be found.

I’m stuck in a non-place, a nothing, a neither / nor, a not anything – in between darkened extremes.

I’ve always been different you see, the odd one out. The can’t you just be the same one, why must you always kick up a fuss one, the I don’t want to wear that fucking frilly dress Mum.

No, I cannot explain what I cannot, what I will not, what I simply shall not. Because my identity is not what you think when you look. My story is not what you assume when you see, I don’t like anything sordid being done to me, and to be honest I don’t really fucking want the colloidal cloud of indecision to clear, I don’t really want to be understood, labeled and boxed.

For I am the same and I am just not and there are no readymade sentences I can memorise to offer you an in to all this disdain, nothing quite as effective as a slap round the face, because maybe just maybe I don’t want to see your pity and gender conforming disgrace.

[lightningstracks]

REPETITIVE BEATS.

That year: 1989; I went to all the big ones: Energy. Genesis. Pandemonium.

May 27th, I remember it so well…

‘GOT TWO BAGGIES, NEW KEKS AND I’M GAGGIN’ FOR A RAVE!’

One body per inch of floor; flesh on flesh. I can feel them up against me. It’s TIGHT.

Cloudless skies; light-headed vibration, partial eclipse that night; Ride on time, Pump up the jam, Come get my lovin’ and oh oh holy Sun rise!!!

20,000 packed in; but there’s still room to move. Salt permeates moistened membranes as we share sweet, succulent cadence. Rubbing innocently against naked torsos. Sliding loose hands over shaved heads; each bristle that brushes skin bears goosebumps; tingling epidermis. A single embrace ignites thousands of electrical shards; they vibrate buzzin’ through skull and spine.

I used to fight, get up to no good, feel uptight. Now all I want is my ravey crew. I don’t know what this trip means anymore but there it goes; dropping hard and heavy.

‘THESE PILLS ARE MINT…’

I mouth to the lads.

They blazon headlines all over The Sun, depicting images of infernal chaos: they imagine we rip heads from pigeons, that we imbibe from silver foil littering the floor, when really everyone knows that ecstasy doesn’t come in wraps; it’s passed around in tiny pills stamped with faces, smiling faces and that pigeons live on roofs of distant terraced houses far from the sultry heat of this dancefloor.

‘ARE YOU OK? HAVING A GOOD NIGHT?’

Words repeated, hands clasp my head, as this E chases blood around my skull.

United communion of rhythm, we tentatively walk through the labyrinth that is laid before our minds. Five epic rooms; gripping now…did I fall…? Onto sculpted Grecian columns, for fear of tumbling deeper. We fly on; penetrating spirited, unconscious delirium further into filmscapes, lands of make-believe. A darkened sanctuary that knows no bounds, save for the early morning ride home. Inevitable dawn ejects us, forces us to leave this pumped up blur, pausing this group embrace until next time.

‘MAD FER IT!’

Ravey tourists, ravey gang! No stoppin’ us!

This is why, on heady nocturnal forages spent hungrily wandering through carparks or aircraft hangers, we are intrepid journeymen, not rebellious teens with no purpose or even worse selfish, neoliberal yuppies earning colossal wads of cash from our spirited union. That Thatcher and her nefarious Tory mob will not divide us. The night is ours and will live on in bulging bursts of energy buried deep in our hearts and memories.

‘I DON’T WANT TO EVER GO HOME!’

We are children of the night, we are children of a plight far greater than just some musical awakening. This love-in, this mash-up; this ravin’ revolution will always be remembered as our: ‘Summer of Love’.

[lightningstracks]

BLUE ROPE

The hand scrapes blue rope.The sun hides. And the water, the water churns. Same as it ever was, the water churns. Deposited in the same place some 10,000 years later. This water is the same as it ever was.

Blue rope, and the hand scrape.

Intelligent use of energy, to find oneself in the same place only this time THIS TIME.

It’s different, and the hand scrapes and the rope feels blue. Parked in the five spots that means I’m parked in the same

FIVE

SPOTS

Quincunx.

And the rain pours and the ground feels h  e  a  v  y.

Have you ever laid in the middle of the field?

I laid there once, for a very long time. Opened my eyes and realised I am just a visitor to this place, a guest; repeating patterns. Cyclical patterns. The same time and time again. Blue rope and hand scrape. Fences off a precious plane, a precious part.

Plastic, man-made. It came to us and will never leave.

Body, this body filled with the same water. Seventy percent of it makes it fluid and lost and bobbing, and gently, quietly, reality can fold and agglutinate and dampen this space of constant change.

Blue or maybe transparent or maybe tinged with green. The hand guides and the scrape, familiar but really                 not. Nothing is. Because it’s raining and the rain won’t wash this away, this feeling that if I open my eyes it will all be the same and yet different and still the same.

The castle is crumbling and the spell is broken and the hand shakes not scrapes and the drawing isn’t perfect. Why is it not p  e  r  f  e  c  t  ? Pushing and pushing and squeezing these words so that they form these sentences, LANGUAGE that belongs to?

And all this shitness is wedged between letters upon letters, words upon words of

perfect.

And the night will come and the rain will pour (again) and the sun will breeze through both of us and we will age and we will change and our emotions will range and I want to say, that without you I would not be here still.

What I think you think won’t be mimicked and I think that maybe I feel a jiggle somewhere. A jitter and a refresh, that maybe I am not the same as I was when I scraped the rope and I felt its blueness.

That the plastic contains, constrains and maintains. Neolithic resonance in the archive of language surrounding us or we as same become different and this becomes that. Repeatedly.

Order, misuse, abuse of the hand that plants the trees in the five spots.

THE

SAME

FIVE

SPOTS.

And there is worry, familiar, seemingly abundant worry that this is not enough. That we have taken too much and that there will be consequences. Or that there is not enough water for all of us, maybe I am not enough. That without these things there will be no me and that without this fear there will be no need.

To rise every morning; feet harnessed to the ground in a constant cycle of growth until one day one day there is nowhere to grow to.

And the hand scrapes and the rope feels

new.

Elongated protrusions of silken mass that twine and twirl and create what can only be described as perfection. There it is again, that word: perfect. This thought has come out and it is writhing in perfect.

Time and time again cast in the same mould the one that never gets old and it’s simple really it is: we are just using these things as processes. Many, different ways of saying that the hand scrapes.

Against the

blue rope.

[lightningstracks]

On Rushing Water.

Well, don’t ask, but look. Look for yourself, and ask not what has been real and what has been false, but what has been bitter and what has been sweet. - Maggie Nelson.

Bitter to touch, sweet to hear. We rely so heavily on the senses. Our sense of this world, this universe, this reality. That if one were to look deep into the cracks, there exists a very real, undeniable fear that what is directly in front of us may potentially, possibly, probably not be real. And so we look, closer, harder, deeper each time.  Scratching at our senses to interpret. Searching to confirm our own personal, subjective narrative of this reality. But what of trust? What of cynicism? What of the void and what of the space between perceptions?

Tom Sewell and Alys Jenkins present to us the ‘in between,’ that which lies in wait, desperate for analysis and understanding. In seeking the void, we seek to understand ourselves. Our nature, our mind, our sense of self. Obsessively we seek to understand the constructed vision of the self in relation to objects, the self as subjective, the self as religion. One's objective experience remaining converse to that of a neighbour: is their version of green the same as your version of green? How would you describe that? Interpretations are a product of the culture we immerse ourselves in. A slippery navigation system. Stabbing in the dark to understand that which is presented, as others around us have already confirmed their opinion, their cognisance of creation.

This interpretive curiosity is palpable here in each sculpture and drawing presented at Dye House 451 by Sewell and Jenkins. Where every piece presented has been produced with a very real sense of intrigue. Intricately refined, Sewell uses the page to break down and evaluate textures, hues and rhythms of nature. He does this with awe inspiring clarity seeking refuge in detail. Inspecting and dissecting to the point of discombobulation. Each representation becoming photographic in its instruction. Acting in distinct contrast to these analytical drawings are liberated, looser constructions of ink and ambiguous, amorphous materials. Defining a distinct gear shift for Sewell’s allegorical navigation system.

Conversely, Jenkins seems satiated in creating her own reality, a new world order. Using the tangible tools of nature and processing her investigation in a three-dimensional medium. Abstracting the common perception of materiality, she molds and sculpts each object to present to the viewer a viable alternative. Using the titles of each artwork to explore her emotional and physical connection to each piece. In ‘Grabbing Hold of the Water’ familiar tones of translucent, metallic blue are combined with solid, liquid formations in wax and robust concrete. Symbols of water as it is commonly perceived. Yet not water, not flowing, not wet. Each sculpture is imbued with meaning, given the kiss of life by the creative interpreter.

An intangible dichotomy exists between the two artists allowing the show to feel complete, rather than isolated works placed in a room. A cool, fluid, ebb and flow surrounds the works ensuring the two artists communicate with one another. Much like the show's title suggests the Rushing Water, encourages interpretation. Of which there are many. No one answer resolute. Nothing concrete and nothing set in stone. Rather placed gently, expectantly, open for interrogation.

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Autoportrait.

A weighted cloak of death and silence, so total, so complete, veils this public space with intrigue, tension, fear and an undeniable, all consuming urge to turn the gaze from palpable, real pain. Instinctive is the force to distance oneself from emotions that appear tangled and misaligned, empathy becoming overwhelming. However, in the act of turning, neutrality dissipates. Luke Willis Thompson begs us to look inwards, begs us; the spectator to enter, begs us to engage. Here in his representation of another, an overwhelming responsibility to the subject, we see as he sees; Diamond Reynolds.

Challenging his viewers seems to be high on Thompson’s agenda and Autoportrait, his latest film work, completed in April 2017, is a product of 18 months at Chisenhale Gallery researching into acts of violence. We are aware before entering that this intimate work reveals the figure of Reynolds; now salient both historically and politically. A brief description is given of her social media broadcast after the fatal shooting of her partner Philando Castile by a police officer in Minnesota, US, 2016. Perhaps unnecessary detail for those that are familiar with Luke Willis Thompson’s previous works, in which he represents the misrepresented. Reynold’s story is but one amongst an innumerable amount of unjustified violent attacks happening daily in the US, where ‘cop watching’ has become an intrinsic, dystopian requirement.

Navigating oneself into the darkened stillness to experience this solitary 8 minute and 50 second 35mm recording, is edifyingly rewarding in our current anxiety led political climate. A black and white portrait: click, clack, flutters onto the screen, the noise of the projector filling in the audio gap that contains Reynolds speech. Allowing the viewer to subconsciously interact with the internal flicker of thoughts and devastating emotions that are all too clearly overflowing, encompassing her internal monologue. All of a sudden we are privy to an intimately private moment, that Thompson describes as a ‘sister’ image to the 2016 Facebook Live reveal. Just as the news, controversial political debates and an ever-increasing amount of documentaries occupy us in a dialogue of political unrest, so too does this film. Lest we forget that death is real and that those left behind after a loved one is unfairly taken are insurmountably broken.

Autoportrait as an addition to a series of dogmatic portrait investigations recently completed by Thompson, is arresting. He imbues so much meaning into the representation of Reynolds that the artist is no longer present, no longer required. It is important to recognise that this artist like his portrait predecessor Warhol, whom he believes he is subverting, is ultimately still urging us to view a situation in a biased and single sided manner; we are left engaging purely with the victim, with the issue at hand, that feels so magnificently unscrupulous. Whether or not Reynolds is aware of those observing, consuming her pain we will never know. This film serves not only as a representation of black lives but as a parallel to the act of portraiture in our selfie consumed culture. The way in which her trauma boldly absorbs her, allowing us access to her in the darkness, is voyeuristically haunting, but is that Reynold’s doing or Thompson’s? It is hard to grip directly onto the artist’s voice here, making criticism and full immersion into the film problematic. One is left questioning the intentions of those involved in the production of this work, not only the artist but also Chisenhale. What as viewers must we do with this work? And if the answer is nothing, why must we immerse ourselves in this darkly veiled emotional premise? Simply to be reminded of the precious nature of life? Or, rather, the precariousness of our control over it in these anguish soaked times?

[lightningstracks]

STICKS WITH DICKS AND SLITS

Constraints, limits, boundaries determined by us or imposed upon us. Whatever the boundary may be, it impacts; creating a limit edge. A significant push/pull action between will and denial.

Whether stopping at the red and going on the green, our actions are moral, ethical and ingrained. But is there a perverse pleasure in being constrained? Like an animal that contentedly abides by its master, do human beings rely and revel in rules?

Tim Noble and Sue Webster create within boundaries they imply upon themselves. We have seen selective installations of rubbish to conjure shadows, paintings whilst blindfolded, animal carcasses and now the single, pervasive, continuous trail of the metallic line. In each of these works a representation of the self, the analytical portrait, another limit on their artistic interpretation.

BlainSouthern plays host to the conflicted and ever evolving skill set of this duo. A series of sculptures created for the space, the latest in their interrogation of the self. This bleached out, bourgeois and boutique gallery in Mayfair entices its viewers from street level. At the window a row of spectators point and laugh, incredulous at the show's title, titillated by its insinuation that there is something permissively sexual to see here: ‘dicks and slits’. Upon entering, the strikingly imposing sculptures, impressive not only in size but construction, tower significantly in the space. Though clown-like in their presence there is something very serious about each of the six pieces in this white, stark environment. They each have a personality, a gargantuan stillness, simultaneously awkward and comical.

Picasso mastered the art of the single line, eliminating the need for unnecessary detail. Whimsical in nature, his illustrations titled simply ‘Line drawings’ are worth bearing in mind whilst viewing these works. Forms were reduced to the bare necessities for delivering a message. But what of Noble and Webster’s message? What crucial detail has been eliminated? Other than their gender, these sculptures communicate actions that are crucial to understanding the duo. They tease and tempt one another in submissive ways and encourage discussion about the artists rather than the work. These self-portraits easily misconstrued as narcissistic indulgence are another opportunity for the couple, who were once married, to look at one another. To interpret one another's bodies and communicate the necessary detail of an action. We see the anxiety of the masochist, the need to subconsciously restrict through the use of a single line. The pair have entered into a contract that elicits some form of delicious punishment on the other.

Both dualist and monist beliefs can be applied to these self-portraits that capture the performative nature of the body versus the mind. The soul, self, subconscious minds of these artists, has it been eliminated or is it hiding in plain sight? Don’t be fooled by the punk persona iterated in the title of this show. These are revealing and intimate sculptures in which we see not just the transparent figures of Noble and Webster but the shadows that fill in the gaps.

[lightningstracks]

InSIDE out.

There are times when I have to remember my own coming ‘out’ story. What happened, why it happened, how it happened, who it happened with. So much so that I start to question if it actually happened. The validity of the act, the sincerity of leaving one place for another disappears and I wonder where did I actually come from? Behind which wall was I hiding and why do I repeatedly have to crank my head out from the darkness to remind myself that it was me that decided to put myself out there in the first place. Why being ‘out’ is supposed to make me feel more comfortable and true to myself when I have spent the entirety of my youth desperately trying to stay ‘in’ the team, being ‘out’ meant I wasn’t running fast enough, passing the ball fast enough. All I wanted was ‘in’, inside with everyone else, laughing, joking with my friends on the inside. Why am I here outside of the in? Then I have times when inside feels so unbearably hot and stuffy and relentlessly suffocating that I remember why I went out and stretched my legs and dyed my hair and shaved my head.

Being out or in it seems are black and white polars we must adhere to. You’re either gay or you’re straight. If you exist in between well you’re neither in nor out…you’re in limbo. And apparently, that’s greedy. But maybe there is a limbo. Maybe we need to remember the liminal space that exists somewhere in between the extremes.

[lightningstracks]

Unique.

Sylvia: ‘To get through the everydayness, the pointlessness, the two dimensionalness of everyday life, which is sort of ironic because all we do is look underneath it all the time - I don’t exist on the two dimensional sphere; I see way beyond it. So why are we taking a drug to help us do that?’

           Woven together, sheets of mille feuille, layer upon layer of delicious disappointment. Human lives are fragile, intricate and at times exciting. Every day, every minute, every month builds us higher and higher. Until we are teetering with overwhelming anxiety and the panic sets in, the reset button is reached and we tumble. We fall, like children. Flat on our faces.

There is no way we can maintain a steadfast pace without getting bored or wanting to resist our own growth. Human beings need challenges, we need wake up calls. We need to upset the rhythm because without the upset where are the stories? Without the rough, well the smooth would be completely lifeless. It is in the darkness that we find ourselves, our true selves. Lurking in the shadows of our disappointed parents faces as we lose yet another race. Somehow the shame, guilt and desperation create the unique. 

Each story must be told, not just the Desert Island Disc bits, all the bits. The mad, bad, glad and sad. Omit no bloopers and you will be warmed to, vulnerability is strength. Is it in the telling of the story that we become unique or is it in the living? Maybe true freedom will come in the acceptance of our inability to be unique. What has happened to us will happen again, it will all be re-written, re-told, re-built and it will all collapse, disintegrate, dissolve that is for sure, that is certain.

[lightningstracks]

[lightningstracks]

Insatiable.

‘She was interested in everything, which makes it harder to die.'

Whilst working in a bookshop during my early twenties I developed a technique that meant I could allude to my occupation whilst simultaneously enriching my mind and being. Holding the proverbial two fingers up to the conglomerate that employed me and enlightening myself with my newly formatted skills. I would hold and stare at each book in a lengthy pretence, lingering with an expression of confusion so that I may read the back of the literary jewel in my hands. On one such occasion I was paying particular attention to Susan Sontag’s diaries. Caught in the act by a colleague I happened to be secretly lusting after with what seemed the most knowing look I have ever had about my sexuality, I was wisely advised: ‘You should read that.’ So I did, and I learnt a lot more about myself than I did about Sontag.

Biographies, diaries and podcast interviews continue to teach me less about the person in topic and more about my own choices and actions. Having read Sontag's diaries and recently watched: Regarding Susan Sontag, a film dedicated to the life of the celebrated author. I have witnessed her many sides, some human and weak, others strong and misguided. I have heard her mind direct from the source. Yet still I feel as though I am missing the bigger picture. Who was Susan Sontag? A mother, lover, intellect, political, critical figure…the character list goes on; so many roles. She was interested in so many things, she had an insatiable appetite for knowledge. Bursting at the seams with information and opinions.

What intrigues me the most about Susan however is the way she died. She wrote explicitly on illness as a metaphor. A character trait that lives within us determining whether or not we will die peacefully in our sleep or from a long and arduous battle with cancer. Could that trait be melancholy rather than cancer? Should we look to her multiple characters? Pick apart her nature, the fact that she abandoned her son in the same way she was abandoned as a small child. That she was inwardly homophobic and took great lengths to conceal her sexuality. She was an insensitive lover, one that cherished her career over her partner.

In noting these traits yet again I am reminded of my own. The pervasive stare of death and illness, an ever present reminder to be a better person. To treat my body correctly, eat organic food and exercise regularly. The endless check list of rights, an overwhelming set of tasks that are so unachievable I remind myself purely of my failures. But will any of us ever escape the biggest threat to our health of them all? Loneliness.

We all encounter it at some point in our lives. What we do with it is what intrigues me and author Olivia Laing who has recently published The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone. She speaks eloquently on artists that represent loneliness through their own techniques of communication. Edward Hopper paints loneliness, whilst Andy Warhol is consumed by the machine and uses his shyness to avoid human contact, therefore exasperating his loneliness. I listened to Olivia tonight speak at the Barbican about this state of mind and the troubling role it has on the body. Anxieties it can enlist, entropies it can spiral and how when we are in a city full to the brim of people, surrounded by lovers, friends, colleagues we can still be the loneliest we have ever been.

Loneliness terrifies each and every one of us, it is universal in it’s demise of the human spirit. It is maddening and enriching, it is necessary and evil. Without the time to be inside ones own head, allowing oneself to breathe life into new thoughts developed entirely on ones own how can we possibly remain sane? But this line is so treacherously straddled by artists. We give ourselves the breathing space and in doing so suffocate ourselves. So how do we confront our loneliness or fear of loneliness? We fill it with doing. Looking at the new; feeding our insatiable appetites. Maybe Sontag died from her endless battle with the feeling of loneliness not cancer. How many countless others have suffered this same death and is there a cure?

[lightningstracks]

Today.