99 WORDS WITH DIEGO MARCON

DIEGO MARCON, TRIPTYCH. THE NAP, 2014, VINILE ADESIVO MONOMETRICO PRESPAZIATO NERO, DIMENSIONI VARIABILI. VEDUTA DELL’INSTALLAZIONE, VENTURA XV, MILANO.
Courtesy l’artista. Photo: Andrea Rossetti

(A male voice)
All the cities have been bombed, all the buildings burnt.
Every single wall has been razed to the ground, those of façades and porches, arcades and halls.

Hospitals have been destroyed, along with schools and churches
(slowly) malls, stadiums, cinemas, museums.
Every park and square has been destroyed too, playgrounds set on fire. The seesaws and the benches are nothing but ash – the statues have been dismembered and each piece reduced to smithereens.
Nothing remains of the bars and their summer chairs, of the grocers or any other shops: no more steamed up café windows along the winter streets, no more cups for those coffee machines.

All the houses have been bombed, collapsing into clouds of dust, from the roof right down to the garage.
Each room torn apart (a voice of a little girl, singing faintly) one after the other: (back to the male voice, slowly) living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms.
Nothing more than the ashes of desks and drawers, of sofas and carpets, ovens and knives, towels and sheets.
All at the mercy of a gust of wind – nothing else.

All the fathers are dead, together with hundreds of the mothers – the last are dying somewhere faraway – (a voice of a little girl, singing faintly again) we can’t see, we can’t see. (Back to the male voice) a lot of young people have died too, along with their brothers and sisters.

But I couldn’t care less about all this because none of it has ever been mine.

Diego Marcon, “Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation (A Script for an Introduction)”, in Diego Marcon, A script for Dick, Cura.books, Roma, 2014, p.15