explanation: sometimes, wherever i am, i pop the ibook and open a stickie to write something. my stickies are filled with waiting hours, or post-insomniac considerations of places and situations. this is one of those, probably from mid-august, as i was looking back to mid-july.
“schipol is a special airport to me. it marks the first plane landing, the first night on a foreign country, the beggining of a year filled with surprises. but despite the personal attachments, it’s still a messy place, with sound warnings against smoking on forbidden places or biking inside the airport and people from everywhere specially teenage tourists eager to get stoned on the nearest coffeeshop. if you add a big strange meeting point, tiled in red and white squares with some pictures of formula one races (correct me if i’m wrong), lots of shops with tulips and clogs, a large amount of air hostesses dressing in blue, and miles to walk, you’ll get the picture.
a month ago i was sitting by the luggage belt, waiting for my stuff, when i noticed once again the vertical display on one of the staircase wells, with its green and red led’s displaying phrases, as the letters shifted from top to bottom or vice-versa. i’d seen it before, but not long enough to read any of it.
nevertheless, i expected something like “welcome to amsterdam” or “please beware of thieves, don’t let you luggage unguarded” or even a sort of quiz of the “did you know that…?” type.
no. the messages were weird, unrelated but equally disturbing, in a funny sense. i was surprised and for a moment thought of allucinations, or someone having fun messing with the system. one of those thoughts that crosses your mind when tiredness settles in and you think you’re starting to see things. one after another, they made me more and more curious, until i got the moleskine out and started scribbling them fast.
“the mouth is interesting because it’s one of those places where the dry outside moves towards the slippery inside”.
or “sometimes you have no other choice but to watch something gruesome occur yet don’t have the option of closing your eyes, because it happens fast and enters your memory.”
or “the rich knifing victim can flip and feel like the agressor if the thinks about previledge. he can also find the cut symbolic or prophetic”.
:|
leaves you thinking, right?
i didn’t know it yet, but that was exactly the point of artist jenny holzer, who developed some sort of text-art, to be printed or exhibited in public spaces.
more of her impressive work in washington, amsterdam (schipol) or paris.
