Level 34 Degrees (p. IV)
Alessandro Nucci
Cléo Sjölander
Vitaly Bezpalov
Coming up to it, the edge of one world and another. Passing a line of separation, into the cool simulated environment of a tall glass building off the street. The foyer’s design is circular and constructed in a way that one is forced to look up into the looming orbital chandelier suspended taut from a thin cord. Points of light vibrate on every surface in formless patterns. A reflection of the luminous fixture, glaring on the polished black marble floor, appears in such great likeness to that of the sun’s refraction on the pale green sea of my youth, that I feel I might weep. I had not seen a body of water in years. Actually, I could not recall the last time I had seen a shoreline or even a rocky lake edge, or brook, or tributary, or creek.
Alessandro Nucci
xx bulk, 2020
Earthware, binder rings, resin, rubber band, 37x14x16 cm. Pic by Elena Guidi
Pen on paper, plastic bag, chains, binder rings, silver paper, 35x24 cm. Pic by Elena Guidi
Pen on paper, plastic bag, chains, binder rings, silver paper, stickers, 35x24 cm. Pic by Elena Guidi
The room was equipped with the light fixture, a white marble desk, and a bay of elevator doors made of hammered tin, three large dragon trees spiraling and arching with lengths of sharp leaves. No one was at the desk. A blackened letter wrinkled in sweat. The building seemed to be completely carved from veined stone. A beetle moved across the marble. Crouching down, I found the insect was rimmed in gold, its black shell or its body segmented in two angular shapes, six small wire-like legs. What would the thing eat? How did it find its way in? This was not a garden bed lumped with cool dark soil or a forest floor shaded and fermented in the compost of leaf. Though there would be no predator waiting to crack into the beetle’s warm innards. I had never seen a gold-rimmed beetle. Longing but not having the taxological knowledge or systems in relation to the practice and nomenclature of an entomologist, I could only call the thing a gold-rimmed beetle, and this felt immature and small-minded. Never having studied biology, I was at a complete loss. Suddenly a shadow loomed above me.
Earthware, smoke, 20x17x15 cm. Pic by Elena Guidi
“I hope you’re not shitting on the floor” looking up, a large man dressed in a hazmat suit cocked his head down, only his eyes showing through a sheen of protective plastic, his voice distorted through a ventilator.
“Did you really think I was defecating?”
“Are you an immigrant? This is not an embassy. How did you get in?”
“The door was open,” The man had a strange and abrasive practiced way of human interaction. Standing, I came up to the man’s shoulders. From a hidden door in the wall two more men appeared, though in sharkskin suits and wearing surgical masks and gloves. I wondered if either one happened to be a dentist, the shorter one walked with a posture of a man who spends several hours a day in an intimate proximity to teeth, but further I hoped one might be my landlord, or their proxy. “This is Killgore and Killgore and Killgore, the landlord conglomerate?”
“They are one of the conglomerates here, there are several firms and corporations. Level 34, right Todd.” Todd was one of the men in the sharkskin suits, he was shorter than the man in the hazmat suit but still taller than the other man and myself, and had thick yellow eyebrows that appeared to be living creatures. Todd confirmed with a nasal exhale and nod.
Cléo Sjölander,
Atonie des masses
“My kids and wife, they won’t leave the house, I don’t think they have seen the sky in weeks. You’re covered in ash and it’s on your shirt and face and dusted in your hair. This is what my wife and kids fear, the poison air, the ash, the green flames. “ Todd listened to the man in the hazmat suit and nodded in approval and sympathy, the shortest man said nothing, nor nod in approval, he looked off in some speculative and unknowable space.
“I’m actually going to have to leave a little early, Todd. I have to bring my family dinner. Like I said, they won’t leave the damn house.” I thought about the old waiter. His wife’s book sounded interesting. I needed to give this letter to my landlord. The envelope was ash blackened and wet from sweat. Soon I knew they would ask me to leave. I was contaminated. My things, my bed, clothing, books, plants, television, all would remain on the street until each article had been picked clean.
“The other day Helen, my wife, read me a few pages from a book on medieval leaching and the market economy of early bacteriophage. She reads with surgical gloves and disinfects each page, and she reads to me aloud. On a crawling day I reached lamps heavily amid thickets, salivary nocturnal flash. white voice speech swamps. Wipe the body with a damp cloth. Without touching the lips, place a tablet under the tongue. snake fluids. Nested with darkly indication. The swollen limpid digest, the augmented neurological benefiting, mass callus. To lay fevered in a swaying field of wheat, a scythe near the edge of path. In the castle wrap the body in fine muslin, sinless and white. I like to watch as she disinfects each page. She has a great reading voice.”
Vitaly Bezpalov,
Light Instead of Light, 2020
Mixed media, dimensions vary
Mixed media, dimensions vary
Mixed media, dimensions vary
The man in the hazmat suit finished and began spraying out a fog from the mechanical wand he was holding. I had not noticed it before. Todd had been watching my face closely. The man in the hazmat suit repeated the words his wife had read. The shortest man had closed his eyes and though I could not see his mouth I knew he was following along with each word, speaking silently behind his mask. I pull the ash blackened envelope from my inner coat pocket. “I need to give this to my landlord” The three man stop and stare at me for a moment. Looking down, I found the beetle had been killed. A light yellow almost colorless mush of the beetle’s guts now a blemish on the surface of the marble floor. With a sharp leather toe, the shortest man kicked at the lifeless shell.
“There are no landlords here, the conglomerates are only partially here, in the form of facilitators and advisors, a few actuaries. The landlords work from an unlisted building in some other sea facing city. That letter would take a few weeks to reach them, and even then it must be precisely addressed, with the sector, locus constant, member identification number, copy of member card both front and back, two other forms of identification not limited to driver’s license, birth certificate, doctors note, library card, and so on, then the letter must be first sent to a processing center in a small town in Idaho. It would probably be best to get a few stamps and an express envelope. There will be not much you can do here. Do you work? You appear sick, and have a protuberance on your left hand, discolored in the reactionary hues of radiation burns. There is, I believe, a post office a few blocks away. Though I guess they are not running, and perhaps that one is no longer there?” At having said this the shortest man went back to toeing the body of the beetle.
Mixed media, dimensions vary
Level 34 Degrees (p. IV)
Alessandro Nucci
Cléo Sjölander
Vitaly Bezpalov
Coming up to it, the edge of one world and another. Passing a line of separation, into the cool simulated environment of a tall glass building off the street. The foyer’s design is circular and constructed in a way that one is forced to look up into the looming orbital chandelier suspended taut from a thin cord. Points of light vibrate on every surface in formless patterns. A reflection of the luminous fixture, glaring on the polished black marble floor, appears in such great likeness to that of the sun’s refraction on the pale green sea of my youth, that I feel I might weep. I had not seen a body of water in years. Actually, I could not recall the last time I had seen a shoreline or even a rocky lake edge, or brook, or tributary, or creek.
Alessandro Nucci
xx bulk, 2020
Earthware, binder rings, resin, rubber band, 37x14x16 cm. Pic by Elena Guidi
Pen on paper, plastic bag, chains, binder rings, silver paper, 35x24 cm. Pic by Elena Guidi
Pen on paper, plastic bag, chains, binder rings, silver paper, stickers, 35x24 cm. Pic by Elena Guidi
The room was equipped with the light fixture, a white marble desk, and a bay of elevator doors made of hammered tin, three large dragon trees spiraling and arching with lengths of sharp leaves. No one was at the desk. A blackened letter wrinkled in sweat. The building seemed to be completely carved from veined stone. A beetle moved across the marble. Crouching down, I found the insect was rimmed in gold, its black shell or its body segmented in two angular shapes, six small wire-like legs. What would the thing eat? How did it find its way in? This was not a garden bed lumped with cool dark soil or a forest floor shaded and fermented in the compost of leaf. Though there would be no predator waiting to crack into the beetle’s warm innards. I had never seen a gold-rimmed beetle. Longing but not having the taxological knowledge or systems in relation to the practice and nomenclature of an entomologist, I could only call the thing a gold-rimmed beetle, and this felt immature and small-minded. Never having studied biology, I was at a complete loss. Suddenly a shadow loomed above me.
Earthware, smoke, 20x17x15 cm. Pic by Elena Guidi
“I hope you’re not shitting on the floor” looking up, a large man dressed in a hazmat suit cocked his head down, only his eyes showing through a sheen of protective plastic, his voice distorted through a ventilator.
“Did you really think I was defecating?”
“Are you an immigrant? This is not an embassy. How did you get in?”
“The door was open,” The man had a strange and abrasive practiced way of human interaction. Standing, I came up to the man’s shoulders. From a hidden door in the wall two more men appeared, though in sharkskin suits and wearing surgical masks and gloves. I wondered if either one happened to be a dentist, the shorter one walked with a posture of a man who spends several hours a day in an intimate proximity to teeth, but further I hoped one might be my landlord, or their proxy. “This is Killgore and Killgore and Killgore, the landlord conglomerate?”
“They are one of the conglomerates here, there are several firms and corporations. Level 34, right Todd.” Todd was one of the men in the sharkskin suits, he was shorter than the man in the hazmat suit but still taller than the other man and myself, and had thick yellow eyebrows that appeared to be living creatures. Todd confirmed with a nasal exhale and nod.
Cléo Sjölander,
Atonie des masses
“My kids and wife, they won’t leave the house, I don’t think they have seen the sky in weeks. You’re covered in ash and it’s on your shirt and face and dusted in your hair. This is what my wife and kids fear, the poison air, the ash, the green flames. “ Todd listened to the man in the hazmat suit and nodded in approval and sympathy, the shortest man said nothing, nor nod in approval, he looked off in some speculative and unknowable space.
“I’m actually going to have to leave a little early, Todd. I have to bring my family dinner. Like I said, they won’t leave the damn house.” I thought about the old waiter. His wife’s book sounded interesting. I needed to give this letter to my landlord. The envelope was ash blackened and wet from sweat. Soon I knew they would ask me to leave. I was contaminated. My things, my bed, clothing, books, plants, television, all would remain on the street until each article had been picked clean.
“The other day Helen, my wife, read me a few pages from a book on medieval leaching and the market economy of early bacteriophage. She reads with surgical gloves and disinfects each page, and she reads to me aloud. On a crawling day I reached lamps heavily amid thickets, salivary nocturnal flash. white voice speech swamps. Wipe the body with a damp cloth. Without touching the lips, place a tablet under the tongue. snake fluids. Nested with darkly indication. The swollen limpid digest, the augmented neurological benefiting, mass callus. To lay fevered in a swaying field of wheat, a scythe near the edge of path. In the castle wrap the body in fine muslin, sinless and white. I like to watch as she disinfects each page. She has a great reading voice.”
Vitaly Bezpalov,
Light Instead of Light, 2020
Mixed media, dimensions vary
Mixed media, dimensions vary
Mixed media, dimensions vary
The man in the hazmat suit finished and began spraying out a fog from the mechanical wand he was holding. I had not noticed it before. Todd had been watching my face closely. The man in the hazmat suit repeated the words his wife had read. The shortest man had closed his eyes and though I could not see his mouth I knew he was following along with each word, speaking silently behind his mask. I pull the ash blackened envelope from my inner coat pocket. “I need to give this to my landlord” The three man stop and stare at me for a moment. Looking down, I found the beetle had been killed. A light yellow almost colorless mush of the beetle’s guts now a blemish on the surface of the marble floor. With a sharp leather toe, the shortest man kicked at the lifeless shell.
“There are no landlords here, the conglomerates are only partially here, in the form of facilitators and advisors, a few actuaries. The landlords work from an unlisted building in some other sea facing city. That letter would take a few weeks to reach them, and even then it must be precisely addressed, with the sector, locus constant, member identification number, copy of member card both front and back, two other forms of identification not limited to driver’s license, birth certificate, doctors note, library card, and so on, then the letter must be first sent to a processing center in a small town in Idaho. It would probably be best to get a few stamps and an express envelope. There will be not much you can do here. Do you work? You appear sick, and have a protuberance on your left hand, discolored in the reactionary hues of radiation burns. There is, I believe, a post office a few blocks away. Though I guess they are not running, and perhaps that one is no longer there?” At having said this the shortest man went back to toeing the body of the beetle.
Mixed media, dimensions vary