reprage

This morning I’m stuck on the starting blocks. I know I want this post to be ‘good,’ but what’s that? Lots of likes? Fame? Fortune? So, I’m sitting here, staring at a blank page, totally lost in a gilded fantasy.

If I could get loaded into Tom Sachs’ MRI machine, we’d be able to figure out what’s wrong with me. Sound absorbing foam lines the inner walls, and a computer monitor fills your entire view. From what I’ve heard, the MRI feels like an anechoic virtual reality chamber.

Inside, a video begins with Sachs welcoming you to his studio; he leads you upstairs and into a comfortable seat. The introduction feels like a warm embrace mixed with the cathartic release of guided meditation. From the comfort of this studio seat, we float through a Powers of Ten inspired tour of the universe. Except the galactic effects are all rendered in Tom’s bricolage style: sprinkle coated donuts, tennis balls, and sugar packets.

When the direction reverses, and we start to fall back through the Milky Way towards the Earth? I think that’s when my mind would drift towards the words of Buckminster:

The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.

Yeah, I just needed a galactic fantasy to recalibrate my perspective away from ‘good’ and back to communicating my thoughts.

A photo of a person loaded into the MRI virtual reality chamber created by Tom Sachs and installed at Deichtorhallen, Germany.
A photo of a person loaded into the MRI virtual reality chamber created by Tom Sachs and installed at Deichtorhallen, Germany.

Photo: Aaron Hankins

Originally written for the Sachsian Syndicate.

Previously: TGIM 37 - When the inevitable day arrives, and you want it gone? But responsibly? Well, that’s the real chore. It’s super easy for stuff to enter our lives, but it’s ten times harder for it to depart.

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