'City of dreams' is an excerpt from a work in progress entitled
'a smear of roses' and explores subjectivity, secrets, sadness
and desire. The non-linear text of 'a smear of roses' ruptures
traditional narrative, opening out into flightlines across the
plains of madness, picking up trace memories of disturbing events,
sensual and violent impulses, erotic encounters and pyschotic
states.
A north american First Nation belief states that healing comes
from the ability to answer three questions clearly. Who are you?
Where did you come from? Why are you here? 'a smear of roses'
is perhaps my way of beginning to seek some answers.
The work's initial line of flight was from de Sade who states
'that only through the exploration and refinement of his sphere
of tastes and impulses, only by sacrificing all at the altar of
sensual gratification, can this individual - he who never asked
to be born into sorry a world - can this poor creature, named
Man, sow a smear of roses over the arid path of life.' (Philosophy
in the Boudoir)
This idea is investigated within the narrative by a number of
characters:
the ghost doll yoko who rises nightly from the pond of dead girls
in the foothills of Kyoto; the notorious GashGirl, a disembodied
intelligence prowling the internet and the streets of New York,
haunted by a ghost girl, an Italian peasant drawn from her wounded
bloodline; and Klava, snow queen, last sighted somewhere in St
Petersburg last autumn. These avatars are joined by the voices
of various intimates, confessors and victims, all enticing the
user/reader to follow their versions of the 'truth', their tales
of the inherent tension between the solid states of solitude and
union.
So quick, so fine, a haiku minimalism composed of a binary gossamer,
a shimmering warp and weft of ones and zeros. There is no beginning
and no end, no right sequence of events. Time collapses in on
itself producing a series of parallel states of being, each with
their own logic and drive. Reduncancy propels the reader forward,
or is it backwards, or sideways? What happens when the permeable
membrane of these distinct worlds touch each other? In which direction
is the flow? The same stories, the same iconic images, loop, twirl
in on themselves, replicating themselves, with just a word changed
here and there, omitted, added, misspelt, repositioned. Eventually
a whole new text has evolved from the genetic starter culture,
the double helix of despair and transcendence.
� Francesca da Rimini