Tag: unbelonging

Post number 40
Connected to posts number 43 and
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Falling off the Ladder

J. L. Baudry
The room pitches and spins. My arms splay out, and I drop into nothing. It takes a long time. Like the journey of light from stars that, by the time we put an eye to the telescope, have pinwheeled into the darkness. I reach for something, anything to hold on to. My recollections of past homes seem solid until I try to put any weight on them.
Post number 26
Connected to posts number 19 and 37 and
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The Others

Brigit Egging
Woman is the other of man, animal is the other of human, stranger is the other of native, abnormality the other of norm, deviation the other of law-abiding, illness the other of health, insanity the other of reason, lay public the other of the expert, foreigner the other of state subject, enemy the other of friend. -Zygmunt Bauman-
Post number 22
Connected to posts number 5 and
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The Uncanny II

Brigit Egging
Uncanniness was first explored psychologically by Ernst Jentsch in a 1906 essay, 'On the Psychology of the Uncanny'. Jentsch defines the uncanny as: being a product of "intellectual uncertainty; so that the uncanny would always, as it were, be something one does not know one’s way about in. The better oriented in his environment a person is, the less readily will he get the impression of something uncanny in regard to the objects and events in it.
Post number 18

Not going home

Tobias Baudry
Sometimes a place makes you feel more at home than home itself. Sitting in the corner of a library, reading a book. Or on a bench in the park. I recorded this song a few years ago about suddenly feeling so connected to a place that, for a short while, I didn't actually want to go home.
Post number 16
Connected to posts number 20 and 25 and
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Coming home from school

Tobias Baudry
The bus shudders and shivers. I walk down the aisle. I watch my step. I steady myself on the handholds. This always feels like a long walk. The other kids natter and guffaw, a ceaseless noise. The driver eyes me patiently in the rear-view mirror. He is a kind man called Cyril. I am nearing the doors, and around me the shape of the sound changes as open air beckons. The voices recede. I hop off the bus into a bright and dizzying emptiness. The bus pulls away. I am left at the entrance to the lane that leads to my house, blinking in the sunlight. Somewhere an electric fence ticks like a clock.
Coming home from school always felt like waking up from a foggy dream. The long walk down the bus aisle and standing at the entrance to the lane that led to our house felt like a transition from one world to the another.
Post number 6
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The Wire Fence

Tobias Baudry
You move less. You hover by the wire fence. The other children maul and romp. You watch the ground, scuff gravel, step a little dance between the pieces of flattened gum. Your mouth shapes words. You shrug and nod. Your fingers never leave the wire mesh, anchored at arm's length. You remind me of myself.
I was working on a mural for a primary school when I noticed one boy standing apart from the other kids. He stayed close to the wire fence that ringed the playground.
Post number 5
Connected to posts number 22 and
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The Uncanny

Brigit Egging
There is a dilapidated house standing in the fields behind my house. It always scared my children a little, while holding a certain magnetic pull for them as well. We used to call it the witch's house. It looks old and tumble-down, but that's charming too, and I'm always reminded of it whenever I drive past an empty cottage somewhere in the west of Ireland - another witch's house.
Post number 3

Drifting

Brigit Egging
"Heidegger describes humans as drifting along groundless in life but the anxiety of this drifting is concealed by our self-assured everyday interpretation of life. As long as we can remain convinced by the taken-for-granted appearance of life, we create the impression of ground, covering over the uncanniness of existence."

- Greg Madison, The End of Belonging.
Post number 2
Connected to posts number 6 and
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The Wire Fence

Brigit Egging
You move less. You hover by the wire fence. The other children maul and romp. You watch the ground, scuff gravel, step a little dance between the pieces of flattened gum. Your mouth shapes words. You shrug and nod. Your fingers never leave the wire mesh, anchored at arm's length. You remind me of myself.