IMAGINING

Keeping in suspense

 “… situations in which the imagination which moulds fictitiously the past, the future and distant objects does not succeed in filling up the voids. It tries but is unable to. Inner hunger, thirst. Arrested impetus.” 

(from Simone Weil’s Notebooks)

 “Yet another dream of flight, in the open, high above the trees, without having the sensation of a miracle.” 

(from Arthur Schnitzler’s A Dream Novel, 1926)

 “Imagination – I do not know what it is for Celpanov, but for me: it is on the border between soul and head, leaning a little towards the head.” 

(from Marina Tsvetaeva’s Notes)

 “One could write a book here, a whole book, even a long and interminable one, and even more, < > of the time and the space of impediment.” 

(from Carlo Levi’s ‘Quaderno a cancelli’)

 
 
 
There is a moment in which one can do nothing other than stay inside a condition, have the experience go through you, remaining in silence and producing nothing.
With a little discretion, remaining reticent in making every thought appear that takes on a profile.
When things cannot be determined in reality, when things require a state of suspension, when they cannot or will never be able to rest on a level, then one must try to construct a space where they can fluctuate, where they can be kept in a state of suspension, where it is only possible to try and imagine them. Not everything necessarily has to be created or realised. Each act is not always moulded or wants to be moulded. Sometimes it is enough simply to let them exist in one’s head without making it come down to reality.
My site is the place where an intermediate state is created between my mind and reality, which allows me to see the gestures even before they exist or to make them appear even if they are never actually made concrete.
In this chapter imaginary works are described, it is where everything that has yet to take shape or which might never take shape is described.
There are paragraphs that will always be in a state of vagueness and fantasy, others will disappear because they will condense into actual works going from imagination to reality.
Desires intersect with the contingences of life which do not always permit the action to be carried out right to the end. In other cases, they feed on this mental condition where staying still and seeing things floating in front of you helps not having to keep them fixed in a static immobile point.
 
(Written in 2020)