Читать книгу Blind.Faith 2.0.50 - Tomasz Tatum - Страница 7

THE PROJECT

LuniXX brushed a shock of white hair to one side of his head with the back of his hand as he sat perched motionless atop a tall metal-frame barstool, hunched over his work station and squinting long and inquisitively through an antique jeweler’s monocle. He was steeped in a state of extreme and quiet concentration, nearly oblivious to everything around him as he slowly and carefully inspected the intricate mechanical innards of an aged Swiss watch movement spread out before him on the tabletop, disassembled and arranged in a handful of logical groupings. To minimize the risk of losing even just a single one of the miniscule hand-crafted components and to ensure that they remained as clean as possible, he had meticulously arranged the pieces–a dazzling array of tiny cogs, wheels, springs and counterweights gleaming in the brightness of the light–on a large rectangular sheet of stiff white cotton damask cloth that had no doubt once, perhaps in some previous era of gastronomic glamour, served as a table napkin. Proceeding in the unhurried and deliberate, almost mechanical, fashion typical of a person long accustomed, as he was, to working with extremely fine tools and close tolerances, LuniXX cautiously inspected each and every one of the components, handling the pieces deftly with a set of small pointed medical tweezers as he scrutinized the tiny treasures before him.

Mounted upright on the tabletop to the right of where he sat was a fairly large makeshift aluminum stand, constructed of the same sturdy chrome tubing as the stool upon which he sat. Upon this stand was mounted a broad platform, flat and glaring white, complete with its own integrated lighting in the form of a 14 watt halogen spot, above which was suspended a metal-framed magnifying glass that could be minutely adjusted by turning a tiny thumbwheel. Now and again, he would slowly place one component or another on the platform, sometimes getting off of the stool momentarily and standing upright while peering through the lens, focusing it carefully to attain the optimum degree of magnification. This construction, despite its being the improvisation it was, functioned fabulously, enabling him to easily see whatever object was affixed to the stand while, in the process, both hands remained completely free for him to handle the item of his interest or to work on it as necessary.

LuniXX was very pleased with what he was seeing tonight. The components he had salvaged would be a perfect fit, he thought to himself as he emitted an audible sigh of satisfaction and relief, for the time machine that he was now in the process of constructing. This contraption was going to be a predominantly mechanical apparatus this time around, devoid of all but the most essential electrical components–whatever lighting was necessary, for example–installed within the confines of an ornately decorated dark oiled walnut wood confessional booth which he had succeeded in obtaining through an unbelievably shrewd trade he had made covertly online against a crateful of government-surplus automotive shock absorbers. He had recently conceived this project to playfully but also poignantly illustrate what he considered to be a uniquely uncomplicated interpretation of the, in his mind, nearly linear defining relationship that existed between organized religion and institutionalized venality.

Taking a short break from his activities, he donned his glasses again. The sturdy composite frame of the spectacles had a unique light beige-and-brown leopard spot pattern that matched the toes of the shoes he customarily wore whenever he went out.

In the very earliest beginnings of his deliberations, the first round of concept drawings for this project originally bore the somewhat pompous title Deux et Machina. It was doubtlessly an altogether appropriate and classic description or even a summation of the subject matter that he was determined to present, LuniXX felt. But at the same time, he had to admit to himself that it appeared to be lacking what someone else might have termed as market appeal. A close friend, with whom he had shared a glass or two of red wine while discreetly discussing the project at the time of its inception, had jokingly referred to it as his blasphemy.Box as their evening get-together progressed and the stock of Merlot Primitivo was successively depleted.

LuniXX later jested that he ultimately made the decision he did because contradictions had always intrigued and provoked him, posing the greatest challenge a true and incorruptible artist like him might hope for. Nonetheless, it was more than likely also attributable in no small measure to both the quality and the quantity of wine which they consumed together that this inspirational anecdote suddenly elicited the need for a fundamental and–as the evening progressed–irrevocable decision within him.

The name blasphemy.Box sounded keen, really smart. It sounded decidedly more radical to him than his original Deux et Machina, the in-your-face ring of the name implying fewer tendencies to accommodate the superficial nature of social convention by gingerly and respectfully bridging the distance between a viewer and the dank and musty traditions of a faith which LuniXX was arguing was always for sale. Forget about all the arm’s-length Benedictine Latin stuff; this name was going to transform this project into an object more restless and disturbing, more provoking and, if all went the way he would like it, perhaps even just a tad meaner.

Nomen est omen, he thought, smiling as he returned to his seat at his workbench and continued to pore over the disassembled watch movement as he pondered the humble beginnings of his project. He grinned momentarily, leisurely swirled his glass and then contentedly took another delightfully long sip of vintage OleManGod from the glass on the table next to him.

But why was he doing this at all? He rubbed the back of his neck and wondered as he sat in the subdued light of the room.

Why did he feel deep within the driving necessity to make this message–or any other message, for that matter–an integral thread in the interwoven tapestry that his life and work represented both for himself and for any outside viewer? For LuniXX, art was always somewhere at the forefront of thought, immediately behind the most basic requirements of social and individual existence. Even the cavemen at Lascaux must have surely had something better to do in those trying times than to paint their mastodons on the walls?

But they did it anyhow and the result was thrilling.

To him, the answer was plain if not entirely simple: art had to be expressive, refreshing, liberating, exhilarating or at least provocative. To him, it was an enigma, then, why so many people in so many places and even institutions felt uneasy or threatened by art. Why was one swarm of ants on a cross more insulting, or even threatening, than another on the neck of a comatose muse in peril of being violated before an altar heaped with bitter fruits? Why would all the representatives and other stalwarts of outwardly civilized states rush to collect art that they publicly declared to be degenerate? Why were artists who succeeded in growing wealthy through their work regularly and consistently spurned, regarded with suspicion or even outright contempt while–at the same time–their work was traded and auctioned at the most obscene prices imaginable? Was it really understandable or even somehow justified that a few ingenious strokes of a brush on a canvas could toss the media or occasionally the entire establishment into a frenzy?

LuniXX was tired. He yawned and placed his glass, now nearly empty, back on the table.

Where the wine glass stood, a razor-thin beam of light reflected from the edge of the work platform cut through the stem, scattering a sharply contoured spectrum of rainbow colors across the tabletop. The light passing through the remaining contents of the glass cast a long crimson orb of light across the white cloth upon which his many minute treasures lay spread out before him, not unlike the dead bunnies or rhinos one recalls seeing in old black-and-white photos of royal hunting parties or maharajas posing proudly with empty ammo canisters at their feet, their bullet-riddled bounty lined up wide-eyed and dead before their boots just before the gin and tonics are served.

This was different, though. The rabbits on these old pictures were yesteryear’s trophies or stew. But these parts, these bits and pieces would soon be joined together in his project. Inanimate as they were, they would nonetheless come to life and, with a bit of luck, they were going together to tell a very wicked story to the interested observer.

Thus, although he found himself this time diverging somewhat from his initial intentions–something that he generally refused to do as a matter of artistic principle–an amused LuniXX spontaneously elected to stick with the latter name because of both its modern ring and its provocative value. In his mind’s eye, though, it remained to him a statement much less critical of the general notion of God than one which was directed at the endemic idiotic hypocrisy and shameless corruption which he felt he could discern in the ranks of the countless self-proclaimed interlocutors of divine knowledge.

It was for this reason that he decided that any project made by him and treating the subject of venality in this context would by necessity need to be a coin-operated machine if it were to make any truly legitimate claim toward the level of artistic credibility he consistently strived for. As a result of this core requirement, a long and patient search ensued until LuniXX at long last finally discovered a few handfuls of outdated coins suitable for use in this manner. Unlike laundromat tokens, which were still readily available to a savvy collector, finding any number of real coins was no easy task in a cashless society like Libertyville@Esperantia: the ones he ultimately found were tucked away among the odds and ends that lined the bottom of some long-forgotten metal tool box which he had to physically force open with a screwdriver because the lock was so badly damaged. He had chanced upon it on a shelf in the rubble-strewn garage of a derelict building he had sifted through shortly prior to it being razed to make way for a high-tech, ecologically-friendly, fully-computerized drive-through car wash salon.

Urban scavenging was what he often termed this exercise. Despite its being technically illegal and also despite its often tedious nature, it continued to be LuniXX’s favored method of collecting the necessary raw material which he required for the bulk of his creative work. And if some particular item he sought could not be readily obtained in this manner, he would resort to bartering.

LuniXX was a true artist and, as such, he considered himself to be principled like only few other professions.

He also had no ZipperCard, making him a full-fledged Chapter 99 offender.