TEXT
Written by SACHI MIYACHI
This text and drawing are written as clues to consider the urban development of the Amsterdam south area during my Artist-in-residence at Virtual Museum Zuidas. These are in a book 'Intimate Stories on Absence' published by Onomatopee. ISBN: 978-90-78454-40-3
A Sneeze for a Fight with a Multi-Sensory Control Giant
Society has become abnormally regulated and controlled. What is more frightening
is that in many places this is normal life - it makes me feel sick to think
about it. I have come to name this a ‘multi-sensory control giant’.
Winter is the season of sneezing. Ever since my childhood, I have never found
an answer to the question of why, for every different person, there is such
a different and particular type of sneeze. The overarching fear of spreading
swine flu has heightened my consciousness of this topic. It is natural for me
to be curious about such an automatic and uncontrollable thing in our bodies
- what exactly is a sneeze? It is a burst of air attempting to evacuate something
irritating from the nose. I need to sneeze to clear my mind. Around 24,000 people
make use of the Zuid station. I wonder how many people sneeze per day at the
station. If I recorded a thousand sneezes, and then combined all these
to make one huge sneeze, then that would be a valuable thing to give to a multi-sensory
control giant.