"Now I'm not fucking with you, I'm talking to you. But I can get the same satisfaction as if I were fucking "

[A.Zupancic - Lacan] (1)

 

Space is not simply there, it takes words to look at it.

which words? what space?

 

the space of others

 

it is said to be in the clouds

or on the moon

 

Iuston. I speak to someone who is traveling. I can see hes world through hes words. Hes world is built through words. The rhythm of hes breath, of the number of words that are in one breath, of the time between one word and another opens the spaces of perception of hes own world.

It's never hes world. It is a world between mine and hes. It is in the midst of words and the words are in the middle. they are a border. I'm the edge. They are built around the edge that separates us. they are built around the lack of the other here. of my lack there.

and yet I am there. and s/he is here. 

 

taken out of hes context, which is hes built-act in the world the other is an alien.

placed in my space, in space between us the other is an alien.

the alien comes out in the intimate relationship.

and in the encounter I feel alien, too

we are two aliens.

two foreigners.

perfectly uncomfortable in being out of place.

aliens.

 

 

what is the geography of foreigners?

where are the foreigners?

where do they position themselves on the map?

the foreigner cannot be placed on a map. s/he is a foreigner because s/he has not place on the map.

if s/he were in hes place he would not be a foreigner.

 

so what is the place of foreigners?

how to place the foreign territory? the foreign world? the world that is always different and elsewhere from being here. but that is however here. so present and cumbersome.

 

I tried to ask other aliens where they are.

while I asked them they were aliens

and I was an alien

 

we connected over time and

I asked them to tell me about their space. how it s’done. what's inside. how it moves.

I ask them questions to see if I understand correctly and because I am curious.

how does that alien space work?

I try to understand how it is where it is.

how to get there?

I seem to see it

am i sure i'm there

never

 

however I sketch the idea that it is possible to start a map.

an atlas.

to put together alien places.

places that by their nature, as aliens, remain irreconcilable with each other.(2)

places that, although they manifest their presence here in this atlas, they always refer to an elsewhere. which is also elsewhere that belongs to hem (or to whom does they belong?) and which is not here anyway.

here are words.

written words.

letters in sequence alternated with spaces. points sometimes.

different from the words spoken. made of breaths and vibration of strings. of meat.

and of voids.

here are w     o     r     d      s  

 

 

 

there are no addresses written.

it is a map of time.

the durations are written.

you don't travel miles to get to those places.

they are all within walking distance of you.

but you don't need to walk.

you get there in a moment

but you have to give yourself time.

 

 

this map cannot be exhaustive.

and does not claim to be.

it is by its nature fragmentary

and it is easily lost in detail (3)

and detail after detail makes up a partial whole

and limited in time and reading.

so, to you who read, I invite you to let go the idea of the whole

which in any case does not exist.

 

a map ...

as early as I thought "without borders"

but then I said to myself ... I am an alien ... what if a boundary map?

not boundaries between things

just borders.

what is a boundary without the thing that is around it, or inside, or on the other side?

if I had to draw it I imagine very thin lines that get tangled up without ever touching.

 

or not. the borders are like holes. they are lines but at -1. they are the negative of the lines that divide.

the border is the lack of the other part. or rather the border is not where the other part is not missing.

it is constitutive because it is missing.

 

the lack of the other is constitutive of my being. so the other is always present in me as missing.(4)

 

 

what map?

a map of signs to get lost.

 

a dream map

of the island which (never) exists

 

this is why I invite you reading to lose yourself

to lose the words

to perceive their intrinsic lack

and the emergence of other words

between these

yours.

 

in this atlas

which is my atlas

in written words

written around your words 

not yet written.

 

this atlas is not visual.

it is an atlas of words. of words shapes. of words games. of ways to juxtapose words. "Rhetorical periods"

that create images

that refer to images

which are (not) there

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(1) "usually we think that sublimation is in the place of pleasure: instead of "fucking", I start talking (or writing, painting, praying ...) - and with this activity I can reach a satisfaction of a different kind than the "missing" one. sublimations would be substitutes for sexual pleasure. however, Lacanian psychoanalysis says something far more paradoxical: even if the activity is different, satisfaction is exactly the same. the point is not to explain the pleasure one feels when we speak with his "sexual origin", but to maintain that this pleasure is itself of a sexual nature. this is what drives us to pose the problem of the nature and status of sexuality in a radical way. it is known that Marx said that "the anatomy of man is a key to understanding the anatomy of the monkey". So we could say that the pleasure we feel when we speak is the key to understanding sexual pleasure"
A. Zupančič, What is Sex?, Short Circuits serie,MIT Press, 2017 <

(2) I refer here to the idea of Atlas of Aby Warbug as presented in George Didi-Huberman, Atlas ou le gai savoir inquiet, Les Edition De Minuit, 2011. “Forme visuelle du savoir ou forme savante du voir, l’atlas bouleverse tous ces cadres d’intelligibilité. Il introduit une impureté fondamentale – mais aussi une exubérance, une remarquable fécondité – que ces modèles avaient été conçus pour conjurer. Contre toute pureté épistémique, l’atlas intro- duit dans le savoir la dimension sensible, le divers, le caractère lacunaire de chaque image. Contre toute pureté esthétique, il introduit le multiple, le divers, l’hybridité de tout montage. Il invente, entre tout cela, des zones interstitielles d’exploration, des intervalles heuristi- ques. Il ignore délibérément les axiomes définitifs” <

(3) “Le bon Dieu niche dans le détail un petit diable niche toujours dans l’atlas , c’est a dire dans l’espace des “rapports intimes et secrets” entre les choses ou entre les figures.” George Didi-Huberman, Atlas ou le gai savoir inquiet, Les Edition De Minuit, 2011 <

(4) “the speech begins with the fact that there is a futile fault there. [...] but after all nothing prevents us from saying that the futile fault is produced precisely because the speech begins. as for the result it is completely indifferent. what is certain is that the speech is implicated in the futile fault.”
“the signifying order emerges not with the One (or with the multiple), but with the "minus one" [...] it is in place of this gap or this negativity that the surplus enjoyment that stains the signifying structure appears. it is a heterogeneous element that belongs to the structure but is also irreducible.”
about the constitutive lack of the other which is inspiring the ideas of this part of the text, see A.Zupančič, What is Sex?, Short Circuits serie,MIT Press, 2017 <