The witness

I’m in Framingham, Massachusetts, researching a public artwork called Equilibrium Is a Process, which will take another three years to complete. I’ve spent the week talking to judges, chief magistrates, probation officers, curators, architects, engineers, masons, Uber drivers, and people across the community. The whole week has been about systems, behavior, accountability, trauma, justice, and what actually allows individuals to create different outcomes. I came here to witness. That keeps becoming the position I trust most. I can observe, absorb information, hold a position when necessary, and leave space for things I do not fully understand. The ground has felt unstable lately, and movement has been essential. When I stop, everything comes up. So I move, I observe, and I keep asking what equilibrium actually means when equilibrium itself is a process.

At the same time, I was contacted by a major television network about my September 10, 2001 video. I’ve been the custodian of that video for f&cking 25 years, allowing people to publish it, show it, and interview me about it. I agreed to this interview under very specific conditions: they could use a particular excerpt only if the complete artwork was embedded on their website exactly as it exists, with its sound, title, and context intact. The story did not run because they were more interested in protecting themselves from liability than in preserving the rights of an artist who had copyrighted the work, both the images and the music.

And that interaction made me realize something very clearly: I no longer have to talk to people about that video or that event. I have done that for 25 years. I have preserved the work, protected its context, answered questions, given interviews, and allowed people access to it. The door has closed. It’s over. Gone. Finito. Bye-bye. I was the custodian of that work, and now custody also means knowing when the work no longer needs to be available to everyone.

Some images from my trip:

my mind now:

Listening to this fabulous episode. I will finish it today before my flight. Refreshing!

“Misunderstanding digital reality, maybe the right word is computational reality.

As an empirical test of logical statements, if our universe is intelligible and understandable, it needs to pass through the gate of computation to prove that it is logical to actually believe and tell each other ‘true statements.”

~ Nicholas Marino

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