Responding

I This is a place without a terrain a government that always changes an unstable language. Even buildings disappear from day to day. [gendered pronoun] wanders in this place [searching [waiting the condition of unbearableness is the constant state of mind for all occupants we read all day in the village square during the rule of [name of major historical figure] a book that is so subtle [its political content goes unnoticed what is political content? [the question or the statement [gender pronoun] creates [a reader culture [generic plural pronoun] prefer both II realism's authenticities are not the question the question [role of art in the State we know art is fundamental to the [New State] as is evidenced in village scenes, majestic ancient views, masses and masses of [generic human figures] marching in columns, swords coded as plowshares, image as spectacle we kn0w [name of city], [adjective], [name of major composer] to recode [reduce] it: Linz, ambiguous, Wagner we know [name of major historical figure] calls, authentically, for a more total, more radical war than we can even dream in the language of the avant-garde we know a commercial promises to reduce plaque more effectively in this same tone but sometimes we exceed even our own expectations to surprise even ourselves something encloses the impossible in a fable an unreal world called real because it is so heavily metaphoric we can't keep our fingers of connection out of it it is a ride in the country, the car crowded with children [each child represents a different ethnicity of [name of nation] it is a moment of standing with light resonating around [major historical figure it is a guiding of the child towards the right path it is a picnic in a field, the spread is bountiful [the spread of [name of nation] is represented through the arrangement of food on the checkered tablecloth it is [name of major historical figure]'s Art Collection: figure after figure each carries spears, lunges, draws the arm back to pull tight the bow a ruined plaza has a [gendered human form] at its en trance a [generic child] draws a sword under the guidance of [generic possessive pronoun] [honorific denoting repro- ductive role] a [generic human form] raises [generic pronoun] arms and four horses turn away another plays a lute an eagle holds a symbol fake [name of nation used as an adjective] heads while the end of lunacy in art was explicit in [name of major historical figure]'s rhetoric while when nation turns to art, art loses its divergence while the [generic human figures] come back from war, their legs in fog while a [generic human figure] sculpts, small against the expanse of marble, giving into the monumental human form that symbolizes eugenic possibilities while another [generic human figure] pedantically draws postcards of village centers, operas, mountain vistas while overwhelmed by an opera [name of major historical figure] plans genocide III we know we respond resistantly as faked children's books of realist adventure tales have turned into military instruc- tion manuals or [name of major historical figure] hails a cab, [generic possessive human pronoun] hand raised here, beckoning as the red flag with [name of fast food chain] waves behind [generic human pronoun] and the red star on top of the [name of cultural landmark in major city] twinkles. many people raise their hands for different purposes all day long we are always waiting for our cab to come the question here is the same as that of a relationship where does art define our vocabulary? the margin declares [it is impossible to speak about something it is only possible to speak beside it [a film with a voice-over of nonsense to act in the unsecular forbidden margins [claims a certain privilege] [generic human pronoun] cast a colonizing eye a scripture of space / a place where a [generic human form] twists in space [follow this body] getting you to recognize yourself in [generic possessive pronoun] work [is kidnapping] in the space of this question some emigrate or lapse into total silence some co-opt this language and paint a series of meticulous and beautifully colored monumental images of people impris- oned and alone at the edge of a tedious despair some [refigure [refuse] respond] call out for an end rewritten, the goal of the artist is to prevent reality in a true and concrete manner IV [generic human figure] claims I can get more information at home than by going to the war scene what [generic pronoun] sees is [gendered naked bodies] in news photos—dead bodies, discarded bodies, junk i  saw  this written on the bottom [a way of testimony the poverty of image among the people of [name of nation] the continual increase in the amount of image a viewer can tolerate [who went to [name of nation? returning again and again to images of torture covert activities depicted              [blown up [to show power details of photographs or Xerox degradations of photos on Duraclear hang loose are vulnerable and fragmentary and images are seen through images and/or viewers [call this] the fate of Madame Bovery, the fate of Anna Karenina A dog with a [generic human face] has slogans coming out of its mouth as angels hold its head back suckle at its tits taped to a [gendered hand, adorned with ring] is a photo- graph of [gendered naked torso], gagged [generic human figure] infects computerized images with digitized viruses and then transfers them to canvas with a robotic device [possible responses to what is seen in [name of nation] at another time another set of reponses: a [sexual category withheld] cuts hair and cameras circle around and [generic human pronoun] is dragged out of the room another [generic human figure] says passionately we express ourselves in a language of regulations. Symbols and numbers best convey our ideas another [generic human figure] makes an enormous painting of a massacre victim, mutilated and bloody, and hangs it by night on a pedestrian bridge what a nation gives us is the image in [name of major weekly news source] of the [generic human figure] standing before the tanks with white flag [generic pronoun] painted on houses, streets, stones, trees [generic pronoun] covered [name of island] with strange marks in chalk, oil paint, and dye [generic pronoun] wished to reduce writing to the zero level where it is without meaning. When culture invades private life on a large scale [generic pronoun] said the individual cannot escape being raped another [generic noun] made a font that was scratched into paper by a knife this font made each letter into a single scratch [generic pronoun] scratched the other [generic pronoun]'s statement on rape into a banner and hung it outside [my zero-level writing [generic pronoun] said protest rape [generic pronoun] said my zero-level writing [generic pronoun]  said dangerous cultural rape [generic pronoun]  said my zero-level writing my zero-level writing V a voice stutters in the background of our waking mind [generic possessive pronoun] stutter is our stutter or it is the way we define our difference? stutter is nation beneath an image of human figures the words [you have nothing to lose but your chains at times two voices talk to one another [generic human] faces [tired] we know we are all constructed when it comes down to it we don't believe it the social always holds us back while the ways that we encounter relation are various we remain searching [searching we question, respond [deny we [move forward