New Writing Scotland Project 2006: Steven Cairns
Reworking of substance simplifies, but does not diminish utility. Article acts as recorder to a
process of conscious manipulation. Temporarily capturing an expression of indeterminate
relations. Rerecording of action coerces history to begin at the start of its transitional loop,
continuously reviving a process of concurring aspiration and adversity. Reiteration of action
confirms regularity of intention, but does not conclude a process of latent differentiation. From
the sameness of repetition character is formed. A figure of foreign informality.
The repeated here is not similar, but different in the process of being similar. To repeat is to
slowly dismantle the original intention, where a difference emerges, gestures are returned.
Considering repetition - the repeated mask a widening fault line, separating gesture from
intent. Where we see repetition, only the familiar exists. The invalidities of the repeated are
overshadowed by the ease of familiarity, when what goes unrepeated has most substance.
The relentless need for identification lifts the singular transgressive article over the parapet
and into ‘the other’, a reminder of the ‘whom’ in ‘them’, and more importantly the ‘you’. No
longer valorised for its oneness, the article faces a temporal state of indiscriminate value.
Rendering with such control said given thing; to regulate in un-regulatory fashion, gives life, a
body and voice, reanimating the singular from the relative anonymity of repetitive sequence.
The anxious process of resuscitation from an anonymous system relies on the very act from
which it is born. Taking from this sequence the singular, to alter and return it. The essence of
each act restructures itself, reflecting the characteristics of each moment. The act itself,
reflecting on this reflection, conversely is reflected in the process. A combination of
perpetually learnt actions.
The beginning is as good a place to start as any. A vista populated by the image of your self,
and that of every other’s other image of yourself, comparable only by sight, not by word or
consideration. Limited only by the perception of where this beginning lies, and where a new
beginning asserts itself; a site of immoderate potential. With this in mind the possibility and
readiness for amendment becomes apparent. Articles wait patiently in open order, in
preparation for a silent catastrophe.
What informs these articles as singular also unifies them with ‘the other’, nesting each within
the bracket of a delineated landscape. Within which, a disaffected frontage constructs itself,
referencing what it has, or used to have. Stop, reassign. A disaffected frontage reconstructs
itself, not knowing what or what not to embellish. Props of semblance lack conscious. The
boundaries of such a tableau are gestured in code, set by a silent line. Restricted within are
the fragments of a fractured framework, suspended in a state of becoming.
Returning to this state, voluntarily in an age of deliberation. A preparatory inclination with no
cause. Reassurance in compatibility satisfies the need and validity of the object, in a
surrounding of familiar pieces. Safety in numbers at the point of conception.
This point in place is never fixed of constant. Tangible artefacts recovered from the idea of
‘something’, to rest in a landscape of changing situations, related by the regulated origin of
indisposition. In such surrounding, relations reflect, in an act that offers possibility. Held back
in bated anticipation.
Anticipation for what is to come, marred only by the instability of intended function. These
props imply movement, signs of the unseen hand, but suggest no outcome or final resolution.
Thought and action exercise, and then refrain from indication, in a configuration that purports
to the workings of some continuous action. Voyeur to an operation paused momentarily in a
reassessment of possibilities. Reconfiguration is immanent. Restructured with a
consciousness of the subconscious, an intuitive reflex in the need for instruction.
Following the lead of intuition the transitional loop asks a future, faced with the taste of its
own tail. A numb mind state, particular to the discipline of its involution, sets out in an act of
apparently indiscriminate organisation. Systematic ordering and reordering breeds character,
recognisable in its obscurity. Confidence in expression of the unfamiliar reminds the ‘you’ that
the consolatory is found in unexpected situations. A continuous pouring of intention spatters
familiar chassis, lapping at the heels of the unknown, only halted by the boundary of the sight
line.
These boundaries contain an invisible structure that turns away from understanding. Gratified
by tangibility and content with the act of being. Optimism and confusion are offered
simultaneously in a performance that depends entirely on perceptions of value and judgment.
In a moment of no-time and no-space memory deals a hand of blank cards. A game for one
with no rules. Returning or leaving from this point provides no answers, knowledge of what
has come before or will proceed has no weighting.
Fixed indefinitely in a moment of turning.