Pg. 1: Two self-heating masks. Two scannable ID’s. A wide-bandwidth portable RF jammer. A backpack full of contraband. More alive than dead for once. I was ready to disappear into the night.
Pg. 2: On the train I was an industrial painter, with official documents and exterior paint. Possession of paint, paper or pencils was illegal to help save the environment. PSA’s, advertising and other ideological apparatuses made owning anything an
Pg. 3: At the hotel I was in sales, a weary traveler. Butted up at edge of the city, near the giant barbed wall demarking the relative freedom of movement in the city to a prohibited area that nobody dared enter. This forbidden part of the city was
Pg. 4: In the hotel basement was a tunnel with a forgotten storm drain ending outside the city wall. The drain’s infrastructure was untouched by the climatic disasters of 2050. Beyond the city’s surveillance, order and utopian claims was something e
Pg. 5: Trapped inside the freezing blackness of the storm drain was an oily, overpowering stench that buckled my knees. Still I continued, there were desires that nobody could understand I needed to traverse. This purpose to move forward sublimated
Pg. 6: My ID’s and electronic devices with all their tracking data were hidden away in my hotel room. I was off the grid, in violation of existing anti-terrorist laws and risking everything.
Pg. 7: The view was stunning; unimaginable devastation, a city under filthy oil slicked water, too big to disappear with grace without a trace. I entered it with no idea where to go or what dangers lie ahead. Rumors of roaming bands of criminal psyc
Pg. 8: Far away from the cameras and the utopian life was the wasteland, jagged and unpredictable. A place where I could record popular sentiment and beliefs in paint, hidden in long abandoned spaces. Most of the recordings are about the state unde
Pg. 9: A new pandemic set in motion the need for the government to shut down all nonessential businesses and to shelter in place the population. Closures made for the public health, controlling the population’s movements and tracking their coordinat
Pg. 10: We were always on the edge of shortages, always asked to be patient. Patient waiting in line to buy bacon, patient in quarantine, patient waiting for the eradication of corruption, patient waiting for the economy to rebound. I taught art app
Pg. 11: Numerous calamities over the years jammed the smooth working order of day to day society. Home schooling was the default inevitability of martial law. This meant students have less contact hours with credentialed professionals and widely var
Pg. 12: An advertising that permeated all aspects of media celebrates the individual who consumes the life it envisioned for them. Citizens couldn’t see a way of life outside of it. The government could get a sense of citizens’ frustration or accept
Pg. 13: The motivated students in class not only understand the meta-narrative in the required text, they also engage in politically motivated art, believing an artist can name and make an art that resists the forces that bind them. I see in the art
Pg. 14: I existed on campus as an adjunct skirting around the margins, trying to blend in, to disappear. I sat in an isolated faculty office, entering grades after my Friday night class. My phone buzzed. I ignored it. “Answer it dude,” said a voice
Pg. 15: Ed scared the shit out of everyone. His classes fulfilled the state’s requirement to include political and tactical art from the 21st century in the curriculum. The inclusion of the classes was supposed to offer evidence that the state wasn’
Pg. 16: Ed’s students installed BLISS on campus and around the city. It was out of place with clear signage, it was obviously art. “BLISS is place to go and be alone in public, covered by Kevlar lined walls and cushion pillows inside. We made this f
Pg. 17: The protest to reform the police turned ugly in my neighborhood. The protests always ended the same way, the stress burnt people out, they went back to their jobs, sometimes accepting financial payments heaped with future promises. No matter
Pg. 18: I was killing time on the web, making the spotty service more bearable in the public library. I logged in as one of my alterative identities, immediately finding the obituary of my younger brother. I disappeared when he was nine years old. I
Pg. 19: The cops picked me up. They didn’t tell me why. That was the worst part. I acted. Whatever they wanted. Concerned. Nonchalant. Affirmative. Absolute. I even began to make myself believe parts that weren’t true. Anything to get out of this no
Pg. 20: Looking back at it I know I was being groomed. My benefactor was in the stands watching his son compete against me in a match. We competed. I won. I wasn’t great at the sport. The more violent and intense the match became, the better I perfo
Pg. 21: The older men who worked for my boss would regularly ask me. “You know you’re part of the mafia, right kid?” I didn’t really know what that meant, I was too young. The day I understood was when I stumbled upon two hit men infiltrating the bu
Pg. 22: My benefactor freed me from my responsibilities to him. He procured a new identity for me through his reach in the department of records. He moved me far out west into the middle of a city. He said to me, “Know anything about art kid?” I di
Pg. 23: There was someone waiting in my apartment. I didn’t wonder how, I was interested in why. I assumed that person was there to kill me. Later I realized they were specifically there for that purpose but it was the second course of action if the
Pg. 24: Badly Licked Bear represented an underground network actively looking to dismantle the entire state apparatus that tracked us and controlled us. They wanted to shut down the internet for good. Within a chaotic state we would find real freedo
Pg. 25: I live in an ennui that is wholly hidden. Perhaps if I took the drugs that were advertised everywhere it would go away but I didn’t want it to go away. I’m sad for the world. I live in a world of experience initiated by advertising that cele
Pg. 26: There was nothing in my control. I took out my anxiety by working out. Sometimes I was a pinnacle of wholesome in a state that worships force: the muscled body in branded gear executing pullups in a public park. Sometimes I was suspect, anot
Pg. 27: I live in an apartment by the ocean. Honee insisted we live there. I met Honee in one of my classes, in a world where there are no coincidences. She’s a Vietnamese refugee. She lives a secret life separate from ours with three grown children
Pg. 28: Honee was kneeling on the bed. She was radiant. She loved me. I was loyal and kept a secret. She felt safe around me. She was informed by a source she trusted she wasn’t Vietnamese, she was really Manchurian, a people destroyed by the Republ
Pg. 29: Wandering through the downtown, going no place in particular. I don’t know how Badly Licked Bear anticipated I’d cut through that alley going nowhere. Bear was holding a family sized fast food takeout bag. Inside the bag with a few loose fri
Pg. 30: Badly Licked Bear made it clear the paper and pencils were not gifts. They were a favor and Bear would be calling in the marker sometime in the future. The favor Bear referred to wasn’t the materials themselves but a new plane of existing I
Pg. 31: I survive by floating wherever the river of fate takes me. I never saw myself as a leader or anyone to respect until I started into the craft of teaching. Helping someone achieve their potential is a better occupation than I deserve. Asking
Pg. 32: There is a guilt I hold for initially feeling it was a lot to ask, when Badly Licked Bear called in the favor. As I write this I can say without reserve I’m wholly indebted for the opportunity to play a role in something that mattered. I int
Pg. 33: There was an operation underway by people friendly with Badly Licked Bear. They were infiltrating the massive ruins of the Forbidden City and routinely dodging occasional patrols and roaming gangs of bandits. They needed a diversion, a macgu
Pg. 34: I figured it out. I smuggle a backpack full of housepaint into the Sunken City. I paint the rubble so a drone can spot the activity. I don’t kid myself. This is probably going to end in my apprehension. I memorize alibis for when that time c
Pg: 35. It was dreamlike in the Sunken City. I painted through the heavy stillness at night. No electricity. Water lapping everywhere. Staying up all night has its costs. I can feel it. I need to sleep by 4 PM to wake at midnight and paint until daw
Pg. 36: Honee made some connections her trip to Asia. She hoped it might lead to meeting someone who knows what happened to her family. She returned late in the evening while I was preparing to take another trip to the Sunken City. She didn’t think
Pg. 37: (alla prima) I left early. I didn’t say anything other than I have a few errands to run. I was rusty, feeling old. I drove to the mechanics shop I thinking about the day I killed those two assassins for the mafioso. I attacked first. My left
Pg. 38: Nobody knew Badly Licked Bear’s original name, or as Bear called it, “my dead name.” All Bear’s IDs stated his new name: DMV, social services, IRS all without humor or irony. To say Bear is a networking genius would be an understatement. Bad
Pg. 39: Badly Licked Bear warned of a bleak, inevitable future. The collapse of society and all of its worst implications: shortages of everything vital, the smell of death. Neighbors turning on neighbors, our worst instincts cesspooling, living und
Pg. 40: Ed drove north in a rented truck to pick up artwork for an exhibition in the gallery at school. He’d come up with an exhibition of artists who use teaching in their art practices. We picked up the necessary equipment from an artist who engag
Pg. 41: The state ducks the question of origins; it cultivates no origin or mythical authenticity; it has no past and no founding truth. Having known no primitive accumulation of time, it lives in a perpetual present. Having seen no slow, centuries-
Pg. 42: There once was an assured belief that conflict spurred technical innovation. The Great Civil War and the Climatic Disasters defined the 21st century instead of technological advancement. Every resource left over was assigned to maintenance.
Pg. 43: The Great Civil War was inevitable after the mid-century laws following the climate disasters. Laws which included a ban on fossil fuel production and use. Several southern states seceded. The lines broke between two warring political factio
Pg. 44: Brutal spectacles of sport and acerbic entertainment dominated post-Great Civil War era culture. A few proxy wars abroad flexed military might. A document leak from one war showed the country used the war as a diversion maneuver to mine and
Pg. 45: A wave of politics that came into power in 2116 made a move to dismantle college education. Education traditionally was a stronghold, avoiding the forces of late capitalism. Academia protected these opposing ideas from total discredit and pe
Pg. 46: By 2119 there were no more classes to teach. I replied to an that ad stated only: doorman wanted, with a phone number. I was hired to be a bouncer in a full nude strip club in the industrial harbor section of the city. It looked rough but It
Pg. 47: In a world where people died every day from neglect, red tape and medical incompetence-a miracle happened. Honee was rarely around, she messaged me when she could. I worried for her safety as she travelled around the world. The Manchurians w
Pg. 48: I was too into myself. I was alone. Stuck. I still saw the two cops before they saw me. They were on my tail. They were reading aloud and writing in a small booklet, I hadn’t seen anything like that for decades. Why weren’t they just recordi
Pg. 49: They intimidated me taking turns to let me know what they could do to me. Your illegal activities down here will continue. You work for us now. You will follow who we want you to follow. You will explore the places we want you to go. You bel
Pg. 50: The son of the mob boss from my youth hated me. It stewed with in him for years. His capo dad treated me with more love than him. It was a betrayal. He hired the two cops to track me. He put a bounty on my head spreading around his opinion.
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