TENANCY Part 11: Celluloid
by Sarona Abuaker
apply to be recorded!
let me tell you what i cannot speak
the dysarthric underlings pulling below
afloat in bardo
sabulous swallowing
spit out azure light
in hopes we see our language carved in the sky
*
one Tuesday morning, i awoke to the world & discovered no one* could see or hear We.
*
this is not a letter to a friend.
this is Victim Application 408 validly declared
—————is validity only declared by you or can i brandish this declaration?
i declare this application legitimate filed under the case first proceeded by Forensic Architecture – Emily Jacir
—————year 2019 / case name: zajal
[all proceeding images “Evidence” used in my file are from their initial verbal correspondences between the architecture firm & Jacir. See ‘Letter to a Friend’
—————the Palestine ICC Proceedings. You may ask why i did not file an application as a sub-clause with the already existing preliminary approved chambers. The case just doesn’t really seem to grasp what i’m trying to get at – in fact the case doesn’t seem to grasp at anything at all.
—————anyhow before i get ahead of myself…}
i am filing Victim Application 408 on the behalf of said victim
—————according to your definition i fit this category).
the crime against We is one of disappearance – for this i do not know what i’ve done.
the disappearance follows, pursues me, holds me.
*
when a quantum observer is watching/particles can also behave as waves. Electrons are “forced” to behave like particles & not like waves whilst under observation. the act of observation affects the experimental findings).
*
- faces Recording
?what is the distinction between archiving & surveillance?
3dir’beka dr’beka
the tear gas canister
“The Triple Chaser”
is the most fatal
because it breaks itself apart into three pieces to cover more ground & bodies on its impact
3dir’beka dr’beka
the separating canister
according to the Defense Technologies website function ‘Find a Dealer’
i can purchase tear gas from one of their suppliers within 40 miles of the city i used to live in
i can also experience it in the parts of Palestine i’m legally only allowed to access in accordance with the “identity card” issued to me
—————year 1999 (west bank permitted)
—————Jerusalem, 48’ historical borders, the Gaza Strip are non-permitted
*
see what we carry
the paper ink heaviness tongue cracked bones
are not just a bodily experience
they are policy
the red eyes stinging spluttering inhale (if you can)
rip the maps off our necks & carve into our chests
what you think is the most revolting thing about us
i don’t just want a stamp in my “documents” “passport” “id card”
denying
entry
exit
curfew
water
family
friends
home
i want to feel the weight of your hatred on me
so i can measure the strength by which
i will need to muster
to hit you back
& you will feel it
in every way
towering over you
our voices filling the skies
our bodies shaking the streets
our hands on your “faces” “documents” “passports” “id cards”
“laws” “checkpoints” “surveillance” “towers” “guns”
ripping everything you have created
& making space making room
for the world We deserve to live in
*
six months later
We can be seen as a byproduct of two methodologies:
wearing “evidence”* relating to home of origin & showing %erasure%
* “evidence” sprinkled onto pieces of transparent over-head projector sheets act as material conduits between the disappearing(s) skin & the external world. Images, graphs, charts, statistics, maps, bank statements from the home of origin &/or showing the said home of origins erasure embody the forms of materiality the non-disappear require in order to see the disappear(ings).
*theory tested a total of 54 times with various materials
[transparent over-head projector sheets opted over paper due to weather temperaments. Ink from the required materials -running down the face/body from unexpected rain- is not a substitute]
The home of origin content is absolutely vital in creating a barrier at which the non-disappeared/ing come to their senses & open mouths/eyes (if able) to acknowledge. (See ‘Where Are You From’. See ‘What Do You Think About What is Happening There’. See ‘Methods for Catapulting Oneself’).
i walk into the local Budgens wearing Ghassan Kanafani’s Men in the Sun head to toe /chapter 1 starting at my head & the story ending at my feet\ with no luck of being sighted. The consequence is a stolen crème brûlée pot. For this i am only partially sorry.
recommended usage:
side affects warning: processes of recognitionDa never started or buffering for centuries
Da: scientists have observed an odd strand of quantum movement taking place in electrons moving among the atomic layers of a material. Rather than moving from the bottom to the top layer [being observed to pass through the middle] the electrons were seen to be disappearing from the bottom layer and reappearing in the top layer a fraction of a second later - with no trace of them existing in between.
*
i cannot tell you what it is like
starring at myself in the mirror
with someone standing next to me
who can only see themselves
*
skin organs tissue veins body
building
(3 stories: white grey green
Story 1. green
implodes rooted out of
raised up torn from
arms-branches
restricting tears / water shortages
a tree should not connotate shortened breath
Story 2. grey
thick dysthymiac toppings sludging
thwack bang zrrrrrrrr wrrrrrrrrr bang bang
our eulogies are sonic echoes
made by their welcome mats
{please tear out scabrous features}
Story 3. white
10,611 dunams>
*
wearing *cruelty free vegan boots
they strap him to a chair
leather binding the top half of his body
lower half bound to the seat by rope
turn on the air conditioner
leave
(windows door wide open
- a night in December
*
where do you go when i give up all of my cards?
“checkmate”
“ace”
“full-house”
do you slam your hands on the table & yell
“it’s a bingo!”
or curl into yourself a snail looking for the shell that once harbored the body
soft safe warm
away
or does it make you want to grab a gun
—————buy a gun!
t-shirts generate bumptious flailing
i walk in the park (hilly fields)
i see two people
walking towards my direction smiling i smile back (a southern flaw)
to realize their eyes on my chest
starring
their smiles not really smiles
more like
boxed mouths
gritting
plastered emerging when one
eats something they find to be foul
but is too repressed /british\
to spat it out
i look down
i see the outline of a place with a name
on it
We are the shit you cannot spit out.
*
you want a diaphanous tongue
blow on the ear
goosebumps on the arm/neck
obeisance until the touch becomes a graze
until the camera turns back on you
until you are the one who cannot leave the hold
*
i hope this is
enough
—————i don’t
care if it isn’t].
scarify;
indrench;
indurate/
faqqua iris
covered
surveillance
towers
do not block a
sniper’s aim.
*
smiling
awash in exhilaration at the fate of being
eaten by us sweet
whipped cream piped
teddy bear cake
arms outstretched towards the betunia night sky
We only had to pass
through two checkpoints to be here
i will not tell you
the family and friends who risked
“Residencies”
“Jobs”
“15,000 shekel fines”
to cross with us
to see the sea
*
release
memory
muscle
heart
if you cut
open the chest
you will see
the blockages
cross lines
coronary
green azygous
armistice
partition
seizing seizing
seizing
*
exulting ———
————— despair
pay $100 scanning
effervesce hiding away
tucked behind ear
swallow keep tight in throat
solid fatiscente grounds
she holds an ipad
when she asks me to select the dates i was in the west bank
she compliments the henna blooming my hands
dotting fingers / a farewell in flesh
before i can stop myself
a thank you crumples out of my mouth
a funambulist
upon passing i spit my name on the concrete
*
interrogated for eight hours
20 times they asked “why are you here? why do you want to return?”
*
i’m not exactly sure why this is being sent to you. i suppose it seems the proper thing to do – an application to tell you of my present disappearance, so that it can be recorded even if i will not be recognized as disappearing [or at all]
you are institutionally positioned, contractually obligated to read this.
—————but what good does that do?
this is not an application to appearance.
i do not want to be summoned back into the world where disappearance pervades.
this has ceased to be an application.
it has become something else entirely.
you are one not able to step away.
even after ceasing your activity of reading this you will remain here.
We know what it is
to feel the flame engulfed in the gaze of another
We wear “evidence”
—————for now
the day will come when We take it off
leaving it on the ground
some of We are laying these certain images down
for something else altogether
what does that mean for you?
where does this leave you?
the all-consuming eyes hanging open mouth slack dribbling seething ravenous
perhaps you’re not hungry at all
insulin dripping into you is all We are
keeping you in floating bureaucratic linearity
*
All images featured as the pieces of “Evidence” are taken directly from Emily Jacir’s film ‘letter to a friend’. All of the images worn by the artist/writer as “Evidence” are owned by Jacir.
***
Sarona Abuaker is a poet, artist, and educational outreach worker. Her mixed-media essay ‘Suture Fragmentations - A Note on Return’ is published with KOHL: A Journal for Body and Gender Research, and her poems are featured in Berfrois and The 87 Press Digital Poetics series. She is currently writing her debut collection ‘Why So Few Women On The Street At Night’ (to be released by The 87 Press in 2021), a queer phenomenology of collective Palestinian futurisms and memory building layering visual cultures, essays and poems, to approach territories as different as Turtle Island, Brockley and Palestine. She is based in London.
***
This commission is presented in partnership with Document. Founded in 2003, Document is an independent Glasgow-based film festival that programmes at the intersections of politics, cinema and human rights. The festival’s 18th edition is taking place 25-31 January 2021, at www.documentfilmfestival.org.
***
TENANCY is a MAP project in twelve parts, presenting new work considering what it means to occupy somewhere–or something–temporarily. The project is curated by Helen Charman, MAP Commissioning Editor.