streets, slowed by its viscosity. I was out of my usual habitat but immersed in it. Not merely an observer to the city’s activity, I was the city itself. I don’t know how much time had passed but at one point I found myself back at my block’s door. When I entered my flat I slumped down on the heated floor. Buzzing and spent I drifted into a sleep. When I awoke I immediately grabbed a pen and a scrap of paper and began trying to draw the journey out, which now felt like a dream, the scraps of which were collected in my puffy eyes. It was useless.
I N S I D E 2 0 1 7 -
STUDIO CORRUPTED SPACE
2 0 1 8
— 32
However hard I tried I could only represent the journey as different lines from one place to another. Distortions of the image that I was so used to seeing on the dashboards of the AVRs. A loading bar of travel. How could I possibly depict this experience? Perhaps there were others that had left their commutes behind for this rich, gritty view of the city. How would I find them? I began looking online for others but I found nothing. If they were to be found anywhere it was surely the street itself. The presence that I experienced was not split between realities I was there in my totality his could not be achieved while in two places at once. The Flood The next morning I woke up at 4am to leave the house with enough time to try and get to work using only my feet. I packed my bag with supplies for a longer journey than usual and a piece of paper as totry and take better note of the journey. I turned on the tap and splashed my face with the cold water pulling it through my hair and cooling the back of my neck. A golden light caught the drops as they fell into the sink. I felt a rush of adrenaline and tried to steady myself with a deep breath, my hands now clasped behind my neck covered with goosebumps. I reached out and plugged the sink, I
grabbed the towel from the side and rammed it into the overflow and watched for a moment as the sink began to fill. Then I left. I slammed the door and I imagined at that precise moment the surface tension holding the water at the edge of the sink breaking. Like a golden balloon popping in slow-motion the water released once again, flowing out across the counter over the edge and onto the floor. As it seeped into the floor boards it would begin to find its way around the cables. The cables which were relentlessly transporting the information of the city. Unlike us, the data was invisible to the eye but omnipresent in its effect. The new decision makers shaping our cities. The two flows meet. One free in its movement the other restrained in its path, sure of its destination. Along one of the cables a sparkle of optic and copper was visible, a break in the cable’s insulation. Perhaps from an rodent intruder or a mistake in the laying of the cables, a distant memory of human error uncorrected. Whatever the cause, it was there. It was the opportunity for this digital flow to escape and join the other on its uncertain journey to be free. The water touched the copper with an electrifying buzz and a bright light spread out across the surface. Causing the whole block to short circuit. No one was awake yet, but devices started beeping. Alarms, switching to their battery, stayed poised, ready to wake their bedside companions. Their lights, however would not gradually fade up and the heating that was triggered by this would no longer turn on. The signal for the kettle to activate with the heating would never arrive. This in turn would not trigger the ordering of the breakfast car to leave the depot to the housing block. The AVRs, not getting the signal that the block had woken up would only prepare to take one passenger that morning, the only one that had woken up according to its message at 4am. It was now 8am and the whole block was waiting on the corner for their ride. A single seated pod arrived but its passenger was nowhere to be found. Each curbside commuter tried to squeeze into the vehicle but every attempt was met with a clunk and a red light. For a moment they were gathered together, confused, the crowd swelled as more and more people left their block finding no form of transport. As I walked through the city, the morning sun lifting the dew from the asphalt, I imagined the moment when the swelling crowd finally broke out into the street and had to walk to work too.