rustle of existence (transcript)
Note / Comment (click to expand)
The text below is a transcript of the narration from a video shown at the exhibition "Shinji Ohmaki: Interface of Being", entitled "Rustle of Existence." The video was projected at a very wide screen and, aside from the narration, featured a lot of long, sustained camera shots of nature and collages of ambient noise. Between each of the three parts transcribed below, there were long pauses. The text doesn't quite have the same impact without the other elements. As poetry, I think it lacks some cohesion, but I still enjoy some of the images and ideas it evokes. I also enojoy it's riddle-like tone. Who or what do you think the "speaker" is?
[ I ]
I have always been there.
Perhaps about 13.8 million years have passed.
A haze
A flash
I was born.
In the utter blackness where no light shines through
In the utter whiteness filled with light
Darkness...
Deep within the creaking and rasping fissures of the skull
Between the warm creases and crevices scoring its surface
In the very depths of the hollow
I was born.
At that moment
Gliding all the way down the nasal cavity
Carried into air
I was born.
Like skin brushing against skin
Seeping through exhale intervals
Slowly, slowly, breathing in and out
Some ten thousand years, or hundreds of thousands
As long as you live
I will continue to be born.
[ II ]
I slipped out of the hole
And made my way to the new world
To climb over that mountain, or
to cross that ocean
Shuddering in the cold
Burning in the heat
Pressing through the dense growth of vegetation
Sand, as far as the eye sees...
Water, as far as the eye sees...
Rocks, as far as the eye sees...
My sweat drips down
And slashes across the earth, leaving little traces
I grew taller and taller
I lost my sense of balance
My heart beat wildly
I was covered in hard scales
I was blinded by glaring light
Naked, I grew thin and wasted
Letting out cries, howling into the distance
All that, seen from space
Are mere scratches on the ground.[ III ]
A gust of wind rises
And rushes through the dark rustle of the forest of beeches and firs.
Rolling beyond the frozen reaches of the mountain
Sweeping through slim, winding valleys.
The wind
From one edge of the universe to the other
The wind travels without rest.