May 30, 2020
I spent the morning looking at the news stunned, and it feels like I’ve thought of nothing else all day. The same day cities across the US burn after nights of rioting and people march in the streets chanting I Can’t Breathe, NASA and SpaceX launch the first ever privately produced spacecraft, carrying two American astronauts to the International Space Station. The timing seems perverse. We colonize and exploit each other. We colonize and exploit other species. And now we’re pushing to colonize and exploit space. I remember the feeling in the pit of my stomach watching as Elon Musk sent a Tesla into space four years ago. The disdain and mind-bending arrogance of this gesture said a lot. A few days ago I found a heron nest in the woods. It wasn’t difficult. The ground bones of fish turned to liquid dust were sprayed like chalky white gesso in a wide opaque halo on the stinging nettles round the base of a towering beech tree. I could just see the scruff of sticks in the topmost branches and hear the rasping call of one of the parent birds. The guano is a rich fertilizer for the soil around the tree. I stood on the jetty waiting to see the ISS go over this evening. A bat carved arcs in front of me, the edge of the curve about ten inches away from my face. I could feel the air displaced by its wing beats on my skin. I didn’t see the space station, but the barrel silhouette of a tawny owl chugged silently by and parked up in a tree. Its call seemed to make the quiet dark deeper
#notaselfie #notanartwork #notaresidency #uncurated #14days #quarantine #selfportrait #mirror #reflection #introvertion #outroversion #timealone #wherenext
Éric Bolduc XYZ 