What is the Quarantine-Body?
How does it differentiate from the other bodies being represented through these indices: the Black body, the female body, the trans body, the migrant body, haven’t all these bodies been quarantined as well? Have not these bodies always already been quarantined? Seperated? Already indecized for the purpose of record keeping: property records, records of wealth, medical and genealogical records, records of census. What are the specifics of a quarantined body? How is it different from a solitary body born, already alone?
Does a solitary body exist without those records?
Or those who record?
Do the records themselves create the perception of body?
Does the body exist if it is never recorded?
I... don’t believe there are answers to these questions.
It seems Quarantine first became an official policy in the late 14th century in venice. When a ship suspected of carrying contagions (at the time, bubonic plague) would be forced to wait off the harbor for forty days before being allowed to disembark. Hence the root “Quar”- referring to the FOUR-ty. Seeing as how we’ve all traveled through far more than forty days perhaps QUARantine is no longer, strictly speaking, the right word. Perhaps now, we are merely alone. Interestingly, by the time that quarantine had migrated from the italian language to the english language it also came to represent the period of time a widow had to vacate her late husband’s house. But maybe these were matters of record keeping.
What is an index?
It can be “an alphabetical list of things” it can also be an “indicator, sign or measure” of a thing. Perhaps most interesting to me is that in verb form to index is to keep a record.
It is a fragment, a piece that alludes to a larger whole.
With the notable exception of the onomatopoeia the idea of the “word” itself is a metaphor, an indicator. An allusion of a kind of body. Perhaps the body exists to provide a skeleton to words. So without the body, without the condition for the metaphor, would there be The Word? In states of isolation and quarantine, where the body is separated from each other, what happens to language?
If “I” cannot allude to “you” (the other) the sign of what “I” am seeing than what becomes of: the use of the word (which signifies)? the other (who confirms the signification)? and thus myself (who attempts the affirmation of a shared moment)?
If the word is something which exists to describe a body than language must be something that exists between two bodies. To cross the indeterminate void between one and an other.
I use “you” to speak to my body,
What is language to the body?
Is it dance?
Is it social tension?
Is it sex?
What is the body to Language?
What do cadavers talk about
Without language what becomes of the body?
Does it become unanimated, an object?
Language was developed to bridge the space between two independent bodies. To confirm the experience of one with another, but there is also a language internally. Try to be silent for more than ten seconds and you might encounter a resisting organism compelling you to speak. Its interesting that there can be both the you attempting to be silent and the you attempting to shout. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has a lot to say about this dysmorphic duality.
Without the presence of the others to confirm ourselves. Our language becomes limited to ourselves.
What does language become when it is aimed purely at the self? How does it not spiral? How does language as a reflection of its own body not seek to only reaffirm itself? Can another body understand the other’s language? If two bodies cannot share a language can they share a space?
but:
If the body is an object does it also have subject?
Why do we recognize other bodies?
Does the recognition come from the body? Like radar or like a beacon?
What is language after it leaves the mouth?
Is it air?
What if it enters another body?
Is it sex?
When a body says “i” to another body it is understood as “you” but where is the space of that distinction?
If bodies are objects is it purely for the possession of language?
I use you to speak to my body, as in:
“You are alone now”. But that “you” infers an other.
How does the substitution of the body for the appearance of a body, on a screen, impact us? The body is inherently unclean. It is hairy and gaseous, it takes up space that we would rather have as ours upon the couch. With the substitution of the screen it begins the process of perfecting the body as purely imagistic creations, no longer physical or confrontational but susceptible to the whims of a scroll or curser. Does this become itself a body. This screen-image now the other to whom we confirm our perceptions, and affirm ourselves within a community. “Oh! That i could imbed my spirit in the inoffensive sexiness of a macbook”.
So is my body alone?
(Sarcastically) With a macbook by my side. (scoff)
If not then who is it with?
If yes then who is the other who declared and recognize this alone-ness?
What is the space between the language of “I” and the body?
Who!? Is the I that CLAIMED ALONE!?!
What if I declared the body to be mine?
Where would this “I” cease possession?
what would be the limit of the body?
Everything is outer space to the intestines.
Is it purely a problem of conversion between the linguistic and the flesh?
If language can exit the body through the mouth, can it enter another body without molestation?
Can an “I” remain an “I” across body-space?
If language can cross between two bodies, is it physical?
Is it shaped by bodies?
If Language is shaped by bodies, is it a body?
If Language is a body is it the body that possesses?
If it is a body that possesses does it posses the body itself or the space between or the space within bodies?
Does it possess all bodies equally?
In quarantine, what is the meaning of junk mail? Sitting hours on the couch starved for human contact, what does a “scam” call mean? Have these become the extent of connection? Our web browsers and internet providers keep a running list of our interests, through the collection and storage of our searches and “likes”. They then use this data to advertise to us similar products that we may be interested in. Is this meaningfully different from friendship? Perhaps, is this more intimate than friendship? Do my friends know what porn I watch? Is the smart-sex doll more likely to be made by Pornhub+, HBOmaXXX, or AmazonArouse? Fuck it. Let the advertisers tell me what I want.
How?
How can a body be alone when it is always accompanied by language?
If language is a body then how is the body alone?
Is language the body conscious of itself?
If language is the body Conscious of itself then what is the language-body to an other?
If we do not all share the body-space equally, can we share the shape of language?
If the body is positioned uniquely in space how does the language-body know its orientation?
If language, as the conscience body, is not oriented can the body be?
What does language use to orient?
IF language exists in space as body, and needs to orient in space as body does it need the language of other bodies to provide landscape?
Is language the body which orients bodies, and through the aid of others confirms them is space?
What happens when the body is alone in space?
When language is confined to the space between skin and “I”?
Does the body become incapable of orientation?
Does it become object?
What is the body without language?
Is it fleeting?
Does the body know time or is the body solely space?
Without language does the body know tomorrow?
Without language does the body stop at skin?
Does the body know itself?
Does the body close?
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
Can the body extend beyond itself?
Without the ability to extend does the body eat itself?
Does it become dirt?
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
When the body cannot share with another body does it become lost within itself?
You are alone now.
On January 6th, 2021, there were riots in washington dc. These were discussed and planned largely online, by communities that were connected through various social media and chatrooms. Inevitably many who attended these riots have espoused a similar ideology for a long time prior to the events on the aforementioned date. However what communities did they find? Were they talking about white supremacy and the overthrow of liberal democracy at the local bodega or 7/11? What about those who were new to these beliefs, those who had been funneled to various forums and videos. What were they seeking when they began their search? Affirmation? Community? What isolation led them there? For how many did they forced quarantine of Covid-19, instigate in them a desire to believe its fabrication, leading further to a wormhole of darker conspiracy? Is the affirmation, and acceptance that these people feel in these digital communities, different than what we all seek?
What happens to the body with language but without other bodies?
What happens to the body with other bodies but without language?
Is the juxtaposition of the body in relation to an other body the foundation for the language of identity?
What is the role of language in defining the boundaries of identity?
What is the role of language of identity shaping the space of the body?
Does identity set the boundaries of language?
Can we only transverse the spaces that we have the language for?
Can “I”dentity exist in isolation?
Is it premised on the relation to an other?
What is the role of identity in understanding self?
If Identity cannot exist in isolation what becomes of it in isolation?
Is your body my body when your mouth is around my cock? When we kiss?
When I hold you what do I need language for?
Can we tell you I love you without having to talk?
With you to help, does the us that we have become, become singular? Can us become I?
Two parts of us extend, our language and our sex, can you hold both?