to build a fire
I build a fire, I take a group of people and I arrange them around it. I observe them as they create bonds with each other, building up a network of interconnections that forms a shared reality.
Now let us imagine them venerating this marvel, packing it into something that preserves it. The chemical rule that moves bodies and worlds is thus locked up in these metal sarcophagi that writhe in space, dominating and succumbing, imitating the essence of their innermost selves.
Now that this mechanism of interconnections regulates their everyday lives, it is transcribed into concrete, becoming the standard that dictates their way of living together. Now that these unstable forces are encoded, that their ways of tackling ambitions and failures are set, and that even the memory of the tragedy has lost the life-giving spark that made it all so immense, they are ready to put into practice their celebratory system.
The effects of misinterpreting a story of which the human dynamics have been lost are just the same as ever. The connections begin to break up and condense into ever stronger nodes, and the entire system that has been created collapses into an age of consequences. The tubes shatter and stretch out into space, the metal freezes and gleams, the conduits are open and the diversity of all powers are concentrated into just a few points. Their mechanical value dwindles and they are transformed into symbols.
The shift towards the final stage is quick and chaotic, as is often the case.
The metal stops acting as a refuge, and they forget about the function of fire: it is now no more than a structure, and its mouths discharge its interior into the ground, which eulogises a single subject.
Here the mass agglomerates and the gestures come together more than ever, until they deify a single point, to the detriment of the others.
Now they are even farther away from their origins, and the tragedy - by now entirely encoded - appears to be the easy way out. They have learnt to play with these idols, refining the propaganda, and now they can force all devotion towards one particular point. The mass agglomerates and the gestures unite. All is lost. Failed, once again. Let's try once more.