Before each linked hymn of words
is numbered and pared down to simple light,
there lies another tongue, one sung in the dark
recesses of the machine, one folded into a series
of small commands, to add, move, or shift
one bit at a time until there is a call to jump
or the word itself becomes too much to hold
in the unseen registers, the tall stacks of memory
where all we've lost is forever being reborn.
Thread-worn and hazy, every void is a symbol,
a mnemonic, an address, a gesture toward home.
What comes of all this breaking down, I do not know
but feel its heat with my ear against its plastic skin,
the rugged start and hum of a hidden brain within
this darkened frame, trying to make sense of a story
it's already forgotten, trying to recall what little remains.
Annalisa Barron, Coalesce (charcoal on vellum)
Artist's Commentary:
Neil Aitken's descriptions of physical and psychological space are a close translation of Myopia and Coalesce. I design hexagonal patterns and symbols to mimic those in nature. I leave the resulting visual network alone at times, and at others I leave only a hint of a focal point, buried under pigment and then emphasized again by sanding away at the image, sometimes burning parts back into view. To me, these images are tiny arrangements of consciousness, illustrations of living personal space.