killing denouement

Once upon a time - I don’t remember when - I put one of those stencil label things on one of my banged-up computer speakers to read “YOUR KARMA IS LEAKING“. I believe it’s flowing quite nicely these days though, with giving away tickets to tomorrows to-be- Friday’s incredible Sonic Youth & Feelies show. Plus the whole weekend bidoun Arabic part is pretty sick. So no, definitely not leaking but joyously brimming over and spilling out around corners (karma’s flexible like that, see), yes. Kind of like these amazing images by Romain Laurent that I came across via the artist and his model.

Above is exactly how the rush hour subway feels these days. Sometimes the air conditioning fails too for added karmic retribution. Indeed there’s something almost farcically wrathfull about these images, like a cascading revenge of the pent up objects. This is what my cupboards at home can get like. I also like the probably unintended comment on hypermaterialist consumerism in these ones. There’s something faintly disgusting in seeing all those presumably special edition limited shoes pour out of a wardrobe. And when photographed in the same way, vinyl pouring out of a closet inspires the same reaction. Which is interesting in that musicophilia, and owning reams of records is usually something seen as positive; a marker of nuanced taste and culture. Yet in the end it’s still mass accumulation of objects; perhaps no different to buying shoes or ceramic figures or even garden gnomes.

I especially like this one in which people flail out of a room door. This is what DubaiBrooklyn looked like, and is also maybe what the rat race looks like. This series - mostly from his personal work is interesting in that there is always an observer, albeit a rather bemused one.

Yet for many people - maybe everyone- this is their everyday life, with no one to offer detatched uninvested commentary on it but themselves. And even as people might temporarily function as this observer - like showing visitors around town, but in your head - they’re at once both inside and outside these multispatial pileups, maybe several at once. I don’t know if that even made any sense.

And then theres a couple with this almost motif of human russian dolls. Take off your outer shell to reveal the true you inside. Sounds like a spiritual self help book. Sounds like an add for a microdermabrasion facial too. Perhaps they’re the same thing. It’s something people do obsess over though- creating and manicuring the most perfect front of honest ‘reallness’ to show to the world. Sometimes they want to reveal, or rather coax out the child inside. Other times, maybe a caterpillar like shedding of personae until you find the one that fits best for your mood and moment. I guess people do do it on a more minute level anyway in that they show different facets - real or imagined - of themselves to different people. Perhaps that’s the way it should be, and unapologetically and exuberantly at that?