Transposing emblem by Blanca Domínguez Cobreros

A hand holds a pencil before a blank paper. About to start the trace of a drawing, it ponders the move and remains still. It doesn’t know where to go in the immense whiteness. Uncertain of the right path, it petrifies. Its músculos grow tenser and tenser, the skin sweaty and cold. It remembers vaguely la existencia of a space of soft and edgy líneas, of free shapes and contours. The hand looks around and perceives only surfaces, but it isn’t able to find the lines, the traces to follow. It cannot pick up one thing; it cannot distinguish a form anymore. Everything becomes one continuous, indistinct substance.

Tenerife, Spain – Drawing light at night – Alexilena

The hand faints.

My eyelids open and close softly, as I look at the face in front of me. Two eyes look back at me while talking, and I manage to tune my brain to a lower speed to observe closely.

El acto of looking becomes very detailed; I start to notice the forms of the eyes I have in front. I see the fleshy contour moving, demarcated by a forest of eyelashes. I see two brown, watery fruits with piercing black holes pointing at me. I try to focus on them, but mi atención jumps to the next spot until I get lost in the wrinkly valley between the cheeks and the eyes. Thoughts sprout from the landscape I am contemplating, and I can hear them clearly: they talk en español. I pay attention to them and realize that they do not belong to the person; they come from my own mind.

Berlin, Germany – Schwarz, rot, gold – Artem Gavrysh

If this means what I just said, when I look at la persona, what I see is the backstage of my mind: ¡I am looking at my judgment! While this suspicion assaults me, the skin of the person starts to feel a little blurred. I hadn’t noticed that there is a second layer, almost perfectly adjusted to the face, but a few millimeters away from the first one. It’s like un holograma, but with a fine, fleshy quality. In a forth and back movimiento, I realize I am having both an image of the person and that of my own thinking in front of my eyes. I want to play with this new magic power of mine, but the more I look, the more layers come out, and I understand I have no control over it. Deviating from my subject, I gaze around to find out, horrified, that every object is now un holograma: their shapes, slightly distorted, vibrate like a humming sound. Meanwhile, la persona accumulates more and more of this coating, emerging from every new perception, fantasía, thought, memoria, … ¡Basta!

Berlin, Germany – Part transparent – Michael

I breathe.

I know there is a quiet place somewhere behind, almost at reach. Following the glimmer of an image pacífica y constante, I focus with some effort and keep on looking. The noisy layers get thinner and thinner… I see them fade.

Two serene eyes look back at me, and “me” dissolves like salt in water, and I become the look of the eyes. In this looking, I can feel more than I can see. I feel no fear.

Cadiz, Spain – Water flowing – Huaidan Photography

The look wraps me like a nest of warm hands, and we drift down the flow of a river silencioso.

I let myself go… I wonder where, though. There is something rather disquieting about “knowing” when taken as the conqueror of a totality: you will never get there. The more you know, the more aware you are of how much you don’t know. Knowledge is an island, one astronomer said.1

I move slowly down the river and flow into a pool of water. Knowledge is an island, and I sail in a sea of ignorancia. If such an island exists, it should be easy to see it on this immense plate. I get concerned I will never find it. Or that it might not exist at all – although, if this water is ignorancia, the unknown, there must be a known somewhere… This dialectical game keeps me busy for hours, maybe days, until I realize that I am sailing on the same spot. ¿What if knowledge is el movimiento?

Spain – The Beehive – Munimara

A big void opens in the water.

I find myself alone in free fall, my mind full of possible endings. I fall and fall, and I open my arms with unexpected joy. In the fall, dancing with the mystery becomes natural: the counterpart of uncertainty is la libertad.

Stuttgart, Germany – Stadtbibliothek – Max Langelott

« ¡Unlearn everything and embrace madness!», urges Rumi in un poema.2 I guess madness is the closest we can get to our percepción innate, like the child in awe about the world, the eyes free from the skin of common sense.

¡Embrace madness! The words resonating in the void. I fall. I fall. I fall in the clarity of madness. I am the flow of the hand, pouring as a current of lines on the blank paper. Living in the things, I see now, there is no need to explain to myself who I am: I am being. And this is, certainly, all I need to be.

Blanca Domínguez Cobreros

Works cited:

1 Gleiser, M. The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning.

2 Rumi. “Your mind can fly to great heights (M II, 2326-2332)”. Rumi’s Little Book of Life.

Credits

Photo 1: Hamburg, Germany – The black escalator – Wellington Rodrigues

Photo 2: Tenerife, Spain – Drawing light at night – Alexilena

Photo 3: Berlin, Germany – Schwarz, rot, gold – Artem Gavrysh

Photo 4: Berlin, Germany – Part transparent – Michael

Photo 5: Cadiz, Spain – Water flowing – Huaidan Photography

Photo 6: Spain – The Beehive – Munimara

Photo 7: Stuttgart, Germany – Stadtbibliothek – Max Langelott

Photos from private contributions, unsplash and shutterstock

Locations

Home: www.perypatetik.net

Social: www.facebook.com/Perypatetik

Cinemblem: Perypatetik youtube channel

The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed

Alencar, Joana. Uncertainty – Our Spirit – Brazil. November 2018.

Awdejuk, Pawel. Niepewność – The Road to Freedom – Poland. July 2018.

Bell, Sarah. The Bushfire Drive – Australia. July 2018.

Bondarenko, Evgeny. Twenty Plus Years. August 2018.

Cajoto, Christina. The Trajectory of Life – España. August 2018.

Castañeda, Martha Corzo. Worried Workers – Peru. February 2018.

Cooleridge, Tweeney. Uncertainty in the Abstract – Slovakia. March 2018.

Cordido, Veronica. The Crib of Uncertainty – Venezuela. January 2018.

Dastan, S.A. Uncertain Waters – Turkey. March 2019.

Deiana, Sara. The Dark Side of Perfection. September 2018.

Electra P. Aβεβαιότητα: The Enemy of Romantic Relationships – Greece. February 2018

Escandell, Andrea da Silva. Compromise – Uruguay. March 2018

Fischer, Kristin. Talking about Cancer – Germany. September 2018.

Gómez, Javier. Uncharted Bliss. October 2018

Goumiri, Abdennour. Uncertainty Is All There Is – France. February 2018.

Guerrero, Marilin. Crossing the Uncertain Path of Life – Cuba. February 2018.

Guillot, Iuliana. Preparing for Change – Romania. June 2018.

Huihao, Mu. Going the Uncertain Way. July 2017.

Julber, Lillian. What Will Tomorrow Bring? – Chile. July 2018.

Kanunova, Nigina. Metamporphoses in Modern Life. June 2018.

Kingsley, Anastasia. Expect the Unexpected. November 2018.

Konbaz, Rahaf. So You Say You Want A Revolution – Syria. March 2018.

Korneeva, Kate. One We – Russia. April 2018.

Krnceska, Sofija. No Name Country – Macedonia. May 2018.

Lassa, Verónica. The Old Eastern Books of Uncertainty – Argentina. May 2018.

Lozano, Gabriela. El cuchillo de la incertidumbre : Piercing Uncertainty – México. January 2018.

Pang, Lian. Now or Later? October 2018.

Phelps, Jade. Healing Journey Pulls Us Apart – America. June 2018.

Protić, Aleksandar. Environmental Uncertainty. August 2018.

Romano, Mavi. An Uncertain Democracy – Spain. April 2018

Ranaldo, Mary. Incerto or Flexible: Italia and UK. March 2018.

Ray, Sanjay Kumar. Once upon a Time in a Queue – India. November 2018.

Çakır, Peren. Building a Future in Times of Uncertainty – Argentina and Turkey. May 2018.

Sanmartín, Virginia. Qué Será, Será – Spain. June 2018.

Samir, Ahmed. Uncertainty in Personal Life. January 2018.

Sekulić, Jelena. Nesigurnost of the Past, Present and Future – Serbia. June 2018.

Sem, Sebastião. Vagrant Poets. September 2018.

Sepi, Andreea. Uncertainties Galore – Germany. April 2018.

Sevunts, Nane. From Uncertainty to Newness. November 2018.

Sitorus, Rina. When Uncertainty Reaches the Land of Certainty – Indonesia and the Netherlands. May 2018.

Trojnar, Kamila. Ephemeral. October 2018.

Quintero, Jonay. The Fear of Not Knowing – España. January 2018.

Uberti, Alejandra Baccino. Adventure – Uruguay. September 2018.

Vuka. Lacking Uncertainty in Political Culture – Serbia. April 2018.

Wallis, Toni. Living for Today – South Africa. October 2018.

Younes, Ghadir. Economic Uncertainty in Life – Lebanon. Part 38.

Zakharova, Anastasiya. LGBQT – Russia. August 2018.

Forthcoming

Translators and writers from Jordan, Mexico, Bosnia, and then on to the Syncretion of Polarization and Extremes…

Source: The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed

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