I’m suddenly aware of my true artistic purpose: to survive the temptations of the past opening up in blatant integrity. The yes, the no, the not yet are still very challenging as my nature is a paradox of mental impatience coupled with a physical lack of verve. But everything moves at such high speed, and the moment fades as fast as my camera’s shutter so I have no time for defending old beliefs and assumptions. What comes up to my eye is reckless, and sometimes offensively bold, but if I censor the input or pay too much attention to the detail, if I black out in allegiance, trying to appear perfect, trying to get public attention, I become part of the majority that loses the day and closes the window to the wondrous failure that art is, that love is, that life is.
Despite the collateral damage, I was able enough to bounce, to take the leap, to bear off from the death house and wave my flag of rebellion from the distance. I’m still awfully scared, but I’ve never felt so mindful, so willing to put up with the truth of what is at hand. Faithfully, precisely, immediate and even religiously. So ready to conjure reality in it’s wholeness: thunder and shadow.
Txema Rodríguez
photographer
Thunder and shadow
Freeze-frame moment
The mod girl and the absent minded boy are your thoughts in their way back to you. They are also subproduct of a ritual, figments of memory, the anthropologic communion of our imagination.
This is not what you are seeing, so go scratch the print and find out the truth.
Whether this is art or not is your final responsibility. How much of it can you take?
If you can see beauty, it was somewhat impossible for me to express. Dare to cut through the flesh of my wide open eye, like Simone Mareuil’s. But test the razor on your thumb first, and bleed.
You are witnessing the collapse of reality. Do you have what it takes to stay and hold on to awareness? This is my offering: a human puja, a black and white ex-voto, a momentary state of conviction and fatefulness. A quivering surrender to your judgment.
Thersites
Luka gouged Nastia’s mauve eyes with a dented knife and put them into a ziploc, right after the body heavily hit the floor, just as Konstantin ordered -not only a proof of death, but also a fetish-, washing his blood stained hands pouring a bottle of mineral water over them and the blade.
He drove from Jávea to Alicante, entering the port harbor at half past five.
Konstantin was waiting his arrival at the deck of the yacht and held out his left hand without even looking at him.
‘Ladno’, he said, and threw the ziploc bag overboard.
No checking, no touching. Anything at all.
That night he got drunk as usual. He cried and babbled in Russian on the silicone breast of a Dominican prostitute, feeling like a ghost. Feeling weary and sold out.
Next day he found Nastia’s lover and hit his face until he spit half his teeth to the ground and the jaw was broken into three pieces.
Luka used to read Nietzsche before engaging the mob.
“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster”. What a truth.
He also used to love Nastia from a distance.
Luka has always been a faithful servant. Utterly devoted. Silent. Stoic.
Now he is almost in his way back to the East. The train is leaving in about ten minutes.
Every man has a limit, even though it makes him a deserter, a runaway, a renegade, the next target shot.
He misses Mamulya a lot. She is like death itself. She always has some borscht to put on the table and a warm, quiet, forgiving embrace. Kak pazhivayesh, VazliublEnnyj Luka?
Every man has a a word, a heart, a limit and a mother waiting for him at home, somewhere.
Ya sebya nekhorosho chuvstvuyu, Mamulya.
Ya sebya nekhorosho chuvstvuyu.
Psychology of mass murder
Keep the gun in the bag. Sit down there and wait. Take a mental account of humilliations.
Remember the time she laughed at your face. Remember the time the russian doll faked it and then said while putting her bra on: you have plenty of time to make it grow thick and hard.
Think of all that people looking at you from the privileged stance. Think of the taste of being dumped. Feed your resentment as you would feed a wild animal in a cage. Let your anger set off slowly.
Plan everything about the killings. Imagine yourself taking out the gun and killing as many people as possible in the least time. Stockpile ammunition. Let the sense of failure creep up and blow your mind. Make yourself a man through destruction.
Photographers and reporters will make you the whole focus of attention. You will always be remembered. Your face will be shown to the whole world with a soundtrack of sirens blaring.
They will give the killing massive coverage. The blood spilled and the body count will be the leading story of the season. Come on. Stand up. Load your gun. Choose your first target. Start shooting. Think of all those nerds deconstructing your background in lectures.
He was a lonely boy. His father was abusive. His mother was alcoholic. No one cared a dime.
Make this your turn. They will shoot anyway.