ISSUES

Touch the bed. Toaster turns on. Mop the kitchen: the radiator begins to rattle. I’m moving around the room, affecting the ambient magnetic field. The light bulb flickers compliantly. Or was I just blinking? Tap the window; wifi router resets. Whistle Dixie; the radio cuts out. I close my eyes, a flash of light, and it fades. But I still can’t find it. I’ve unplugged everything. All the chargers lie tangled up together in the middle of the room, the pile of plastic cords as lifeless as a bag of chicken necks. I press my ear close to them; I hear nothing.

Straighten a picture frame, and the stereo lights up. What’s the source? I’ve cut the power now; maybe my body itself is producing currents, flowing through all the circuits hungry for a charge, waiting with a dry sponge’s eternal patience. Tie my shoes; thought I saw lightening. Staring down the clock. Remembering that time we went to the shore in the middle of the night. It was storming over the ocean. Mike jumped up from the blanket where we were shivering and said, What if I’m a bat? He heard sounds, and sometimes he’d play them for us. He thought it was sonar. That’s why he said he grabbed the kitchen knife: to play the guitar.

Open the fridge. The whole room seems to phase. I’m pulling wires out of the walls, but I can still hear it. It could be very close, inches; or, alternatively, not in this room at all. It’s high, or maybe low. It might be one pitch, or several. Lock the door; the toilet flushes. Maybe it’s the coffee maker? The one that looks like a bunker. It could be coming from inside my ear. I hear it still, or I think I hear it; I’m not sure what the difference would be. I wish you really were a bat, Mike. That was a year before you went to the hospital. And the sound – well, you’ll never escape it there.

- Becket Flannery ~~~~~~~~~

The molecular friction caused by microwave radiation was first observed during experiments with radar. The first documented use of the term “microwave” was in 1931, the same year that the aye-aye of Madagascar was classified as a primate. Seven years later, echolocation in bats would be finally confirmed. Maleficent is a Disney character who first appeared in “Sleeping Beauty” (1956) and then in an eponymous film 62 years later. Her signature headdress was based on the Virginia Big-Eared Bat. The aye-aye uses its very long finger to tap trees, using the echo to locate hollows where food might be. (You can use a microwave to cook a hotdog; you cannot use it to dry a poodle) The aye-aye’s very long finger inspired the physiology of The Silence, an alien-like creature on the television show “Doctor Who.” The Silence remain a shadowy organization despite their widespread influence because anyone who sees them quickly forgets about their existence.

Invisible influence; occult entities; nocturnal creatures. (the aye-aye is the only nocturnal primate) The history of a thing (Nietzsche reminds us) is a chain of meanings extending down some distant past or several. He was at pains to stress that there is no logical coherence to such a chain; and we can add that such a thing is entirely different when affecting different bodies; and that the thing itself is invisible. The chain is actually just the history of its effects, its conduits, and the evolution of forms to receive it.

THOMAS HÄMÉN

b. 1987 Luleå, Sweden. Lives and works in London.

Thomas just finished his two-year residency at De Ateliers in Amsterdam. Employing a wide range of references and tools, Hämén creates installations that gives form to poetry. This year, Hämén is also one of three curators for the Luleå Biennal. His work has been shown at Art Rotterdam with Rod Barton, Clearview Ltd in London and in the survey Swedish Art: Now! At Sven-Harrys Konstmuseum in Stockholm.