This blog post is a reply to LOST PREDICTIONS by Fiona Murphy and Eva van Roekel
Maruška Svašek without ChatGPT
Karel entered the museum with a visceral urge to be surrounded by artefacts. To be sucked in by the collection and erase himself. The trip to Berlin had shaken him to the core. On top of that, on his return he had found the house empty, without any trace of Anneke.
Welcome, welcome!
The young woman stood by the entrance, her melodious voice echoing in the empty hall. It was just after 10am. He grabbed his wallet.
The permanent exhibition is free. You only pay entrance for our special exhibition, it’s a great show, it’s called Monsters of the Deep.
She smiled and pointed at a poster with the exhibition title and a drawing of a giant sea creature, its curled tentacles reaching out in different directions. The limbs reminded him of his stubborn attempts to hold on to a reality that had shaped his life for so long. Of his need for a familiar world of paper manuscripts, handwritten notes, and the taste of stamps. He sighed and put the wallet back in his coat pocket.
I’m good, thanks.
He walked on and entered the first exhibition hall that bathed in the morning sun. All he could hear was the soothing rhythm of his own footsteps. A painting in the far end of the room stood out for its remarkable graphic quality, achieved by a multitude of overlapping black lines that spoke of an underlying order. He stopped and lifted his glasses to read the label.
Composition: Paris, March 1949
William Gear
born Methill, Fife, 1915-1997
Heavy black lines are dramatically applied like a child’s arbitrary scribble. They are
interwoven like the strands of a spider’s web, charged with a feeling of tension and
restless energy.
A web, of course. Tension, indeed.
He did not realise he had whispered. In silence, he read that Gear had been a member of CoBrA, a group of artists established in 1948 whose members had been inspired by the directness of children’s drawings and folk art.
Directness
direct
raw
open
His words drifted in the air.
scab
He walked on.
In the adjacent hall, he was drawn to a collage, assembled from bits of wood. The artist, Margaret Mellis, had found them washed up on a beach, and had arranged them on a square canvas. The work was from 1980; the year he had started teaching. The year he had met Anneke. The year he had gained confidence in his academic work. Gazing at the semi-circular and rectangular shapes, he felt deep sorrow.
stranded
The fragments were marked by the weathering effect of sand and sea, and he imagined them drifting for days, for months, for years. Being bashed in storms, paint peeling off.
soaked
ripped
torn
His words found their way to the broken pieces.
He inhaled sharply, remembering that his wife had kept telling him to stop burying himself in his work, words so often repeated that he had stopped listening. By 2000, the growing piles of books and papers had created a dense wall in his office, a barricade to keep out all sorts of unwanted invasions. Sitting high on his throne, he had nourished the illusion of control and order. His credence in wholeness and independent thought had been fed by his love for pen and paper.
In Berlin he had understood that he had been living in phantasy land. That his body had been raided. That the attackers had smirked, calling him DINOSAUR. That he had laboured while they had ridiculed his hard work. No wonder he had lost grip and was falling to pieces.
He looked at the wooden fragments. It seemed they were trying to tell him something, but he wasn’t sure what. Then Nina Roth’s clinical smile entered his thoughts. He snorted.
Damn you, Roth!
The arrogance of her haughty statement that machines would soon take over had infuriated him. Her message that AI could do it all. Cheaper and more efficiently. That it was a no-brainer.
No-brainer my ass!
By the time he reached the second floor his rage was total. Almost bursting with anger, he stopped in front of the first object in the hall, forcing himself to see to calm down. It took a while before he realised what he was looking at: an interactive screen with the instructions
EXPRESS YOURSELF
TO CHOOSE COLOURS, TOUCH THE PAINT SPLASHES
Before he knew it, his right arm lifted. In a flurry, his index finger began to slide over the cold surface. A sharp-teethed mouth appeared. The yellow face of a monstrous computer in the act of devouring a helpless red figure. Two green circles for eyes. Feeling slightly dizzy, he stepped back and witnessed what he had done. His throat softened, seeing the force of his own futile resistance reflected in the figure’s gaze. He pressed the purple splash, added the letters A and I, and encircled the word with a green spikey line.
He looked at the work again and stood still as his muscles slowly relaxed. Just as he reached for his phone to take a picture of the monstrous scene and send it to Anneke, the screen went blank.
Can you believe it? Devoured, again!
His laughter filled the hall. The reflection of the here-and-now in the black screen made him realise what he would do next.
He’d pull himself together.
He’d go on a long trip with Anneke.
He’d clear his office.
He’d buy a golden pen.