MARK FRIDVALSZKI
Recently I have been bothered by a re-occurring feeling of awkward nostalgia. As if part of my body was slowly rotting, and my mind was haunted by a vision of the past, articulated through a repetitive mantra of Oh I member. Pointlesslonging determined by the good old days feeling, so superficial and shallow as mold can only be—some kind of fluffy disgusting fungus killing your appetite. The older I get the more I tend to enjoy nostalgia—in a similar way as early 19th century architects with their craving for the restoration of gothic vocabulary, or as retired empires gaze at their past and find pleasure in the glamour of their once-majestic maps. Isn’t this the most conservative thing in the world? Praising old school as the only value that remained in the times of post-modern liquidity, post-internet artificiality, post-crisis seizure, post-ironic sense of humor.
E is also the most common letter.
Did you know that?
Did you try it?
And if not, would you like to try it?
Your tongue feels like a lizard, gently sliding over your lips and teasing the palate. It’s wonderfully soft and slimy, yet it creeps through your mouth as if it was a muscular surfer stuck inside a giant whale, which was thrown on the Venice Beach by an apocalyptic tsunami. Shaky jaws spread seismic waves through your face, your neck, and your whole body. Where is the Epicenter of this earthquake? ’’Where have you been all my life, my love, my little blue love? I miss you and I want you and I want to be around you. I want to be round just like you. I’m here because of you’’. Your eyeballs—finally detached from the brain after 23 years of constant struggle—go crazy and you can hardly stop them from rolling up and down. It’s the ultimate ego trip, space journey you have won in the lottery, a time capsule for all the best moments of your life falling on you all at once! I see your horizon. I see the blue lines of linear perspective as if we were in the film Tron, or inside some Italian Renaissance painting. It’s a perfect illusion, detailed visualizations replacing the giant velvet sun that just set. It’s an escapist tunnel taking you straight to the Holy Jerusalem of Acid Heaven. No, there is no exaggeration here. It’s pure optimism; positive vibes with eyes wide open—super wide open.
There is, however, something tempting in thinking of nostalgia in the framework of the Nineties. The good old accelerated Nineties. The times of flourishing music industry and the techno religion on the rise. Galloping progress fueled with Techno-Capito-Optimism. New hopes and new drugs. An era marked by the End of History and the great collapse of the Cold War order. A decade when liberalism wasn’t so much neo yet and the division between real and virtual was still a thing. The last decade that wasn’t actually haunted. Nowadays it seems so old in these terms. I guess it’s just a matter of time for it to begin looking heroic. – Piotr Sikora
Untitled, 2019, stickers in different formats on vinyl, ed. of 50-100
Another Out of this World Event, 2019, video, 3’14’’ in loop, 4:3; music source: Liquid, Sweet Harmony, 1991, XL Recordings
Vertigo, 2019, pigment transfer, acrylic on canvas, 50x70 cm
Different printed matters, cassette, etc.
