performative audio tour, 2014
part of the Art & Politics seminar by Mona Kriegler
Masters in Curatorial Studies and Art Criticism
Université de Saint Joseph, Beirut

the idea behind this intervention in the master seminar was to bring attention to certain questions relating to the body and its subjective relationship with the city.
the aim of the walk is to superimpose the lived city with the imagined city, in other words realities and possibilities.
avoiding the tropes of the beirut historical or informative promenade, the walk treads a mundane itinerary in which are embedded the notions of scale, time, property, publicity and memory.
using sound as an indelible reverb in time, and staging/performing provocative situations, this hyper-sensory urban exploration questions the role of personal and collective memories, how they are perpetuated, materialized, manipulated or erased through the urban environment, and calls upon the body as a social, ethical and political entity and a producer of place.
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photos by matthew stender
trailer by matthew stender
text adaptation of the audio transcription >
an alleyway drawn in dotted lines
porous space, tentacular spills over
two porches, no doors no fences
open windows
an old couple passes through
the crowd and greets with smiles
the strangers in their
home
main street
signs and banners
visual noise
silent voices speak of inexistent pasts
identify your speakers
they may seem familiar
no stranger than you
you must look suspicious
try not to look suspicious
do not look left
do not look right,
do not look suspicious
2012
georgette sarkissian
the forgotten victim
the absent monument
echoes travel and are trapped
between walls and buildings
look around, nothing happened here
traces erased
repaired
the virtual monument to the forgotten victim
cannot be situated or it would instantly cease
to function
inside, a cup a bottle a shoe
trespass
the first poem from the handbook for city dwellers
part from your friends at the station
enter the city in the morning with your coat buttoned up
look for a room and when your friends knock
do not, oh do not open the door
but, cover your tracks
do i know you from somewhere?
if you meet your parents in beirut or elsewhere,
pass them like strangers
turn the corner, don't recognize them
pull the hat they gave you over your face
and do not, oh do not show your face
but, cover your tracks
find a monument and walk towards it
you are the monument you are the center
trace the gazes back to the eyes
high on poles in the sky
dark glass reflecting your image
see when you come to think of dying
that no gravestone stands and betrays where you lie
with a clear inscription to denounce you
and the year of your death to give you away,
once again, cover your tracks
this is what they taught me
dying is pointless, one must know how to disappear
ahead
escape
the invisible sky
the hidden mountain
the occulted sea
under your feet
the rumbling waves erode the earth
turn your back
look elsewhere to find
a sky
a mountain
a sea
the missing object
leaves a trace
absent weight
resonance
stories lived
trapped and radiating
while gravel
and stones
travel
dust recovers
garden
benches with their backs turned to each other
a fence protects the green
guards you out, dangerous body
escapes are made airtight
you may look
but there are always two sides to a door
which side are you on
cross
enter
trespass into someone's backyard
take a stroll in the garden alone, with a friend or a lover
there is no exit
but there are many eyes
watching you try
the ground
viscous liquid poured over
sharp edges still visible
what is buried underneath my feet
inside
rooms with too many openings
yet no windows
hands have written on the wall
wallpaper peeling
a presence through remains
the absent body appoints representatives
a plate with rotting food
a mattress with patterns of mould
the absent body rearranges space
the bells don't stop
the walls are witnesses
to the immobility of objects and their hidden lives
walk out
unscathed
nothing happened here
the gaze enters through the window
you could see
into
lullabies and bedtime stories
try not to look
shutters closed
shutters open
closed
closed
open
closed
how does light get in or out
the neighbor cries out
you heard it yesterday and the day before
coming here
the caged bird sings louder
sings longer until
tomorrow
mohamad
a boy
his coat still hangs
in the corner above the pile of rocks
there is his chair and his foldable stool
where he sat and waited
his chair, his foldable stool, his shade
where he sat for eight hours a day
tomorrow
an empty apartment building
whatever you say, don't say it twice
if you find your ideas in anyone else, disown them
the man who has not signed anything, who has left no picture
who was not there
who said nothing, how can they catch him?
cover your tracks
a loose tile
is a portal
do it, undo it, redo it, repeat after me
then look up
this is my sidewalk
nothing happened
the city is redundant
it repeats itself so that something will stick in the mind
memory is redundant
it repeats signs so that the city can begin to exist
a shrine, beliefs sculpted in stone, touch the wall
what is holy what is glorified made into statues
holy water, holy flower, holy hole in the wall
your icons are not dead, they hide under the dust
you must believe what you see
believe your eyes
turn the corner
the city is redundant
it repeats itself so that something will stick in the mind
memory is redundant
it repeats signs so that the city can begin to exist
look inside
stir up the dust, see what you find
what is left
dust and sand
washed up on the shore
where is the sea
can you hear the
waves
death notes
in the streets
private invitations to funerals
please consider this private invitation
pray for her soul to rest
saturday from 11 am til 6 pm
help her disappear
champs elysees
a street walks into a home
draw a line and do not cross it
erase it and draw another
plates clinking
children playing
the tower looks down upon you
look up one last time
united
a gas station with a broken vending machine
instructions on how to forget
never rock or tilt
machine can fall over and cause serious injury or death
vending machine will not dispense free product
turn around
you are in two places at once
naked bodies are on display
made from a different kind of plastic
laundry, chair, garden,
the air smells like a mother was just here
in the garden
by the street
her garden
his street
in the smallest void between the buildings
a crack where noise disappears
the ground moves under your feet
a loose tile
what it conceals and reveals
take it out and put it back in
do it, undo it, redo it
repeat after me
stairs leading down to the highway
on the way, a tree uproots a house
a mattress, shoes, bottles, burnt wood
who was here
first
a locked rusted metal door
rust, mould, time was here
sleep was here
sweat and urine and tears
the windows are blown shattered
the house is a tunnel you can see through
were dreams recorded we could have met
as if it were a ghost
we buy apartments
beirut international platform of dance
fouf i'm sorry
i love you
you love my mom
i fucked your mom
the way to hell
whose traces
whose names
abou saoud
chadi
fouf
souad elias kerbaj
mikhael antar
how wide the sidewalk
our colliding shoulders
and our indifference
the narrow city grows larger
shop with mezzanine for rent 4x4m saint louis street near geitawi hospital
water delivery service, 24/7 telephone
semaan challita plumbing home services
dear neighbors, to stand against the injustice you are facing, join the demonstration monday 14.04.2014
for sale : commercial spaces
the shop is surveilled by cameras
papers plasterers on the wall
a second skin
impossible to remove
history
layers
palimpsest
whose traces survive
the sidewalk enters
the building leaks
the threshold
the entrance
you must remain unfocused
displaced
uncertain yet immobile
do not make eye contact
the door is open, please stay outside
roasted eggplants
sundays
laundry
saturdays
showers
evenings
jasmine
blood
and old age
tiles undone
whose ground deconstructed
under this ground
a camp of white
protrusions remain
escape from the earth
what only strange tongues
can reveal
behind what i see
there is something buried
nothing disappears,
things withdraw
between occultation and epiphany
the future erupts into the present as much as the past
how do you read the missing image
what is beneath the earth i see
erase your traces
time is an archeology of the present
deserted landscapes
what is buried underneath my feet
you're constipated in your fucking soul
the gate is locked, please come in
we are here with the ghosts of past and future
eat the meat that's there
don't stint yourself
go into any house when it rains
and sit on any chair that is in it
but don't sit long and don't forget your hat
i tell you, cover your tracks
on wednesday mornings, a man stands in one of the abandoned run-down houses lining these stairs. silent and gray with his back towards me, he is taken with the same meticulous activity each time. he does not move, he does not speak. he does not see me or notice my presence. he labors at the window, looking out onto the city, producing the muffled sound of something small being cracked open and over the years, covering the floor of the room with cracked pine nut shells
i could tell you how many steps make up the streets rising like stairways and the degree of the arcades' curves and what kind of clay scales over the roofs but i already know this would be the same as telling you nothing. the city does not consist of this but of relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past. the height of a lamppost and the distance from the ground of a hanged usurper's swaying feet. the line strung from the lamppost to the railing opposite and the festoons that decorate the course of the queen's nuptial procession the height of that railing and the leap of the adulterer who climbed over it at dawn, the tilt of a guttering and the cat's progress along it as he slips into the same window the firing range of a gunboat which has suddenly appeared beyond the cape and the bomb that destroys the guttering, the rips in the fishnets and the three old men seated on the dock, mending nets and telling each other for the hundredth time the story of the gunboat of the usurper who some say was the queen's illegitimate son, abandoned in his swaddling clothes there on the dock.
as this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands. a description of beirut as it is today should contain all beirut's past. the city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of the hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.
a boy weary
of his body
of his eyes
has no favorite place
there are no favorite places
here
turn your head to the side
look at your feet
touch the walls
there is nothing
but place
watch your step
watch the sky
balance your eyes
the train has passed at 13:17
you have missed the train
the earth still shakes
the ground still rumbles
the trembling of the bridge
the pedestrian tunnel dug out at its base
shakes
mattress, pillow, signs on floors and walls
flicker
families take to the underside of bridges
with traces less violent
or traces erased
except names
and stories
and echoes in the tunnel
where are the elections
no to the parliament
on your walls i have written a poem
new blood
we buy apartments
have a seat
have an oyster
wait for the traffic light
on the street corner
on a plastic box
where is the river
it flowed to the sea
can you tell where the sea is
if the fountain is dry
and the river still flows
despite empty faucets
hidden behind the wall
is a river that once turned red-
blood
vengeance
from the icons
that have tried
to erase it
this is not true of beirut, in every point of this city, you can in turn sleep, make tools, cook, accumulate gold, disrobe, reign, sell, question oracles. any one of its pyramid roofs could cover the leprosarium or the odalisque's baths. the traveler roams all around and has nothing but doubts : he is unable to distinguish the features of the city, the features he keeps distinct in his mind also mingle. he infers this : if existence in all its moments is all of itself, beirut is the place of indivisible existence. but why, then, does the city exist? what line separates the inside from the outside, the rumble of wheels from the howl of wolves?
also in beirut, city of sadness, there runs an invisible thread that binds one living being to another for a moment, then unravels, then is stretched again between moving points as it draws new and rapid patterns so that at every second the unhappy city contains a happy city unaware of its own existence
from my words you will have reached the conclusion that the real beirut is a temporal succession of different cities alternately just and unjust but what i wanted to warn you about is something else. all the future beiruts are already present in this instant, wrapped one within the other, confined, crammed, inextricable.
-- with reappropriated excerpts from italo calvino's invisible cities, bertolt brecht's handbook for city dwellers, texts by jean baudrillard and jalal toufic