… scream*
7.25 cold Friday evening mad rash around house spread evenly improvised dress improvised meal without dressing running from bright cold into dark cold cold war between my time and bus times speeding up short steps passing old lady barking dog breaking the cold of the evening slowing down steps getting longer getting on the bus stop bus stop step into the bus relief gallery refilled flyer on entry artists reveal themselves after short time white walls minimal décor two tables tons of toys two minds mind the gap gathering go ahead …
The impression I got after the 30-minute noise concert was that I had attended a modern guerilla meeting, or listened to a new kind of punk music. The ideas behind the latter seem to be the same – rawness, unpredictability, rebelliousness. There is no compromise nor surety. It was the first minute of the set that was its essence for me. Pain Jerk started with a sound that broke into me in the most violent and abrupt way. A war-like (in its every measurable aspect) sound shook the walls, crushed the ears, rocked the body with every change he made. The experience of the sound was dualistic – it encapsulated both the beauty and monstrosity of human nature. The sonic waves flowed through the body like water or wind. Or they crushed like rock, pierced like bullets. The first sound like a bungee jump, or the first kiss. The first sound like murdering someone, or running naked into a church. I wanted to scream, driven both by primordial pleasure and terror.
*Zbigniew Karkowski/Pain Jerk in concert, 24th October 8pm, Arsenal Gallery
In the miazma of purgatory
Did many the audience in the gallery – sitting, standing and squatting on the floor – realise what they were letting themselves in for? I doubt. Chatting and giggling they couldn’t all expect they would be witnesses to a purgatorial rite. No matter where their position in the room was, in an instant, Karkowski the Beelzebub and Pain the Disciple Jerk pushed them into the maelstrom of incapacitating sound they churned out mostly with an occasional press of the button. Wired, laptopped and equipped with all sorts of devilish devices, they left no chance for anybody to escape their drill. Granted, a few misplaced souls managed to flee the place a couple of minutes into the concert. (Were they candidates to Heaven?) Otherwise, we all took the punishment. Some naively tried to evade it by covering their ears, all in vain. That was a purely corporal type of disciplining, involving virtually the whole body: abruptly piercing the delicate inner ear, cutting through the brain, gripping every single fiber, tearing it, crushing the chest, punching the stomach from within, tickling the balls, whipping the limbs. Battering, trashing, beating the flesh.
But just as the silver chain on my neck started to feel like a creeping insect, I noticed that all the abuse I was taking didn’t really affect the mind; I could see my body as the most exquisite instrument, capable of producing an infinite number of sounds. Silence was just an inch away, on the other side.
I’ve been through purgatory. I’ve been cleansed. I’ve learned what silence is.