SYMPTOMS OF A SIMILAR VIRUS A CUT-UP DYSTOPIA
SYMPTOMS OF A SIMILAR VIRUS / A CUT-UP DYSTOPIA Illustration: Kostis Ktistakis Text: Pavlos Triantafyllou This booklet was created on the occasion of participation in the international competition “fairy tales 2017”, organized by the BLANK SPACE office. (blankspaceproject.com) Special thanks to Valia, Ariela, Loukia, Madeau, Danai and all the other friends that that they were advising us during the creation of this project.
First Symptom/ ‘We are the language’
An impervious night, in a muted remote boardroom. A white noise comes dim from the operating ventilator. Clothing is enough to identify rank.
There’s heated debate between geographers and criminologists. Economists are having disagreements even among their ranks, but that’s ok. After all, this is science. What, on the other hand, is a point of stress and unease is the fact that the I.C. of an S.M. has been negatively assessed for the third time. What is more, two other S.M.s on mission have mysteriously stopped reporting since three Therbs. Forming an I.C. on the matter made it clear that these two facts are not unrelated. This surely meant an N.M. (Neutralization Mandate). Nevertheless, inspector Lecault asked for the cabinet’s advice.
Scientific Managers issue their statement: “It is more than obvious that we stand before an instance of the ‘Hawthorne Effect’: The researcher can influence the outcome of an experiment by being too closely involved with research subjects (‘Unlocking Innovative Solutions Through Technology - Operational Manual for SMs on Mission’, pp.60-70, publ.: U.N.H. Press, Hawthorne: Ancient Manager).”
Medics also have a say: “Patients are knowable only through medicine’s histological staining techniques. For us he is just a junkie, a queer. The particular S.M. of the T1 sector was diagnosed with sexual declination and was submitted to hormonal therapy when he was a child. Moreover, he is not unacquainted with drugs. S.M.s employ drugs during their missions; pills to keep them awake, concentrated, more aware and efficient. But he got carried away with the filthiest of them all – Methonis 37-41. He got addicted to pleasure!” They re-suggested hormonal therapy, electroshock and lobotomy. His apprehension, however, falls out of their authority.
The bibliocrates’ representative reads as follows: “All we care about is that ‘Book’, he is none of our concern. But the ‘Book’ must not be disseminated without control”.
Inspector Lecault stops the conversation and calls their attention to the Great Eye, one of the new U.N.H.’s optical magnifying machines.
Second Symptom/ ‘Vultures roost on the old courthouse of flaking yellow stucco’
)xTherb
0054/38/59
Notebook:(
f the ial side o r e a e h t h oug d terracMoving thr e roofs an h t g n i s u city, by sier. ntation ea e i r o s e k a lting es, m makes revo n e v e t i , Sometimes rough the easier. to move th e s o o h c s Huckster ons; their n processi i t h g i n k sed to thic ot be expo n n a c e s i d merchan an landsunlight. moving hum a e k i l k o They lo scape. ersal. tered disp t a c s s s e l on the A name ndergrowth u f o e s u d They make h-east, an n the nort i s f in f i s l e c tari short ined tribu a r d f o r e the clust all the south. fications, i m a r ’ s e t marTheir rou place; the e m a s e h t n be hawking converge i they will g n i n r o m kets. By stalls. nder their u g n i l g g a or h t report. in my firs I read aga
The ecological void renders people’s activities more transparent and thus easily visible and controllable by the new Great Eyes. The U.N.H.’s dam played a big part in this regard, by eliminating cultivations, water rituals and public baths and forcing thousands of people to migrate. But they eventually settled in this dense town among many others.
Report telegraph No.1, T1, J. Thiakos/(0050/22/01)xTherb Hurdles impenetratable. Intricate culture and social system. Many languages in use. Many names for the same person in use. Mysterious repetitive everyday prac tices. Many forms of religion.
Notebook:(0054/37/42)xTherb I let them find and analyse a poem of mine so they’d think that I became careless. The poem said: “I’ll take the word-form herein – while revelations escalating – one Book and something I’ve tasted I’ll take the word from hearing”. At the bottom of the page was written: “The original Sin was the sin of knowledge. The first infection”. I knew they desperately wa nted book, a book they had no clue about.
that
Notebook:(0054/39/00)xTherb They tracked me down by interrogating a local Methonis dealer. They used my mission papers and grammatical observations to translate the native’s language. They located the subsector by using the Strugatskies’ paper, specifically their notion of ‘housing as a by-product of networking’: “[…] What in the first instance seems like a bundle of elements is actually a set of integrated structures. Residency could be easily considered a by-product of networking of all kinds. The need for network stability and infrastructure dryness was successfully met by creating domestic settlements. People, mostly migrant lodgers, are using the houses only as dormitories. So they usually change lodging house every subteneighttimes of Therblig. Their only obligation was the network’s maintenance” (‘Strugatsky & Strugatsky, mission paper, pp. 55, T2 sector).
Third Symptom/ The S.M. (Scientific Mercenary)
Only some Therbligs remain. Neurons from the subcortical savanas are migrating to the more fertile cortical surfaces. The benefit of intervening in the materiality of cognition itself goes hand in hand with the total deprivation of the moving capabilities. A rare and supernatural capacity of mental navigation. An infant with the brains of an all-powerful shaman calling upon a deaf servant for notes’ dictation. Like all Methonis addicts, he anticipates danger in awareness and acknowledges its fermenting service.
Notebook:(0051/33/29)xTherb I stopped applying queuing theory, listing, simulation, and break-even analysis as soon as I realised that it was insufficient. This contradicted what the ‘Unlocking Innovative Solutions Through Technology’ on page 40 to 50 suggested.
Notebook:(0052/59/44)xTherb I don’t know when my apprenticeship begun, since it was carried out in a context of reality. I didn’t see my teacher often, Herikor, a local shaman and one of the Methonis dealers. His instructions were conveyed through a series of real situations.
He didn’t notify, as he should have, the U.N.H. about his doubts. A second dose was enough to start developing a high level of intuitive adjustment, […] to imagine and explore seemingly fantastic potentials in any situation, while at same time giving equal consideration to prosaic and practical aspects. He had developed an attitude at once probing and impersonal, remote and alert. He was an S.M., but an unusual one.
He told him. It was something that nobody knew about: ‘WE ARE ALL INVITED IN A TRANSMITTAL FEAST’. And he got to admit that we are all keen for a slice of the action.
Fourth Symptom/ With hindsight it is always clear...
He’d never been a chatterbox. Not a usual thing for a linguist, an S.M. belonging to the T1 sector. Low rank for sure. The S.M.s were trained in the U.N.H. Training was a two-fold process, scientific and military. An endless chain of S.M.s were sent on missions, as a way of re-comprehending the globe, which meant to violate and understand. Compliance, implementing genetic grammar and military actions were his main duties.
Notebook:(0054/38/57)xTherb Both the Strugatsky twins, my old boys, urbanists, both skilled in the use of subtle drugs and poisons, were exterminated. Their identical livers were extracted. I’ve tasted their secrets. Their S.M. rings pierced my ears.
Notebook:(0053/52/34)xTherb I asked “is all knowledge but cannibalism?” “No”, replied Herikor, “knowledge is apprenticeship in the global metabolism”. He then gave me the Book. No front page, no title. Only a notification that the author desired to remain anonymous.
Herikor is moving erratically and quoting from the Book: “Sooner or later the enemy will learn of our plans and the means we possess to implement them. We will apply the traditional rules of hit-and-run warfare against a larger force, drawing them deeper into our territory while raiding and cutting supply lines�. But hastened to add that waging a war is like cutting a hole in the fabric of reality. It might be either an exodus, an escape hatch out of this bleakness, or a final impasse. In both cases, we can expect a landslide of defections to our cause.
Fifth Symptom/ The I.C. (The Inferential Card)
-“Changes?? Doubts?” said Lecault, obviously irritated. “Changes, Mr. Snide, can only be effected by alterations of the original. The only thing not prerecorded in a prerecorded universe are the prerecordings themselves. The copies can only repeat themselves word for word. The I.C. is a copy. On the other hand, whenever you doubt Mr. Snide just notify us and remember the wise words of a great man”: “[...] The I.C. was the result of the increasing need to negotiate with insurance companies urged on the case for standardisation. But above all, the I.C. is a truth chain, an industrious organization of infallibility” (President Orama, The U.N.H.’s Founding Speech, year: antiquity, source: U.N.H. Library).
Lecault’s last words are fading out...
All underlined clauses quote passages from William Burroughs’ ‘CITIES OF THE RED NIGHT’