My smile is stuck

I cannot go back to your Frownland

My spirit's made up of the ocean

And the sky 'n' the sun 'n' the moon

'N' all my eyes can see

 

                                                                      Captain Beefheart

 

Here, here, improperly here! A journey, in three movements.

 

Two interiors, two utopian spaces: Eric Theise’s Gutterball and Bram Ruiter’s Is All Around. Here, communication with the outside is made possible by light and music, conduits between inner and outer worlds. 

 

Outside, a landscape with no north. Only ruins, wanderers, and flickering windows: Ben Balcom’s Speculations—watch out for the man dancing in the spherical warehouse.

Further on, the crumbled city becomes a forest: Emily Chao’s No Land. A flickering rectangle on a tree. Although the forest is soundless and colorless, a message reaches us clearly: 

 

                                                  no land / no song / nowhere / no now / no home.

Beyond the forest we find more architectural remains of a bygone civilization: a huge barrier of red bricks and windows, still inhabited by human voices: Assia Piqueras’ Récif. The journey ends facing a wall. Covered with shredded wallpaper—vestiges of lost interiors—that moves in the wind, a silent, Joycean poem: Eric Theise’s To No End Gathered.