Gaze, desire, exchange and self-representation

Total screen

I don't really make a difference between looking at a screen and looking at what's around it. Everything is a screen. Everything is a screen to my perception and to what I would like to perceive. In truth, I don't think I am really fascinated by screens. I use them, but as I scan them with my eyes, I feel the frames more than I perceive the images they enclose.

Real objects seem to me to be as impervious as their images on the screen. There is not much difference. The image is an object like any other. This is probably why I am not captivated by the idea of God. Even if I believed in such an existence, God would never be anything but a god like any other. A physical immateriality. Or the other way around.

I will never see the billions of things, animals, people and objects that surround me. I don't care. Seeing doesn't change anything. Being aware of it is just disturbing. It is too much. This so-called wealth is too much in my existence. I can't do anything with it. It is not accessible to me; no more so than those objects on my table and within reach are in reality. This abundance only pushes my imagination adrift and away from me.

I know this notion of abundance well. I have already portrayed it through hundreds of objects, costumes, gadgets and dozens of people who parade around. The same permanence of all things and beings. None of this is accessible to me simply because I cannot be at the heart of things and beings. I cannot be what I see. I am external. I am only embodied in myself. This seems to make sense.

So this exchange, this famous exchange advocated everywhere today, at a time when some people seem to fear losing it, losing the ability to do so - perhaps because they are glued to these terrible screens which themselves seem to only broadcast an invitation to exchange - I don't know what it should be made of.

I exchange a coin for a piece of bread, I exchange a few words of courtesy - to you, to me; I speak, you listen to me; you speak, I listen to you, but I do not exchange my place for yours.

When I am intensely caught up in something I see, think, hear or say, I don't exactly exchange. It is even the moment when I exchange the least. I take and when I give, I give by taking; that's all.

The exchange should only be called that if it were simultaneously possible in both directions: reception ↔ gift. This is not the case, however.

That this can happen at the same time does not mean that it happens at the same place; at that same place of exchange - cross-flow in a single channel of perception and time.

One step you, one step me; after you, after me, together... all this does not make the exchange

It would have to be like in those war or espionage films in which, at a given moment, two prisoners switch places with anxious precision of timing and location, with the precaution of perfect equity in the course of synchronous operations, under the threat that everything would start to backfire; under the threat that a gunfight would break out at the slightest misstep, at the slightest deviation from the right of the protagonists advancing towards each other, barely meeting each other's eyes, on this bridge chosen for the occasion, in the open.

An operation that is perfectly legible and yet trembling because it can only just be controlled. Once released towards each other, the hostages each unroll a thread that is intensely taut from their base, until it breaks off in the middle of the journey, where the bodies cross and finish facing each other to continue their progress with the measured step of a tightrope walker, turning their backs.

These short journeys, full of cold or hot sweat and strong emotions, are sometimes called love stories. In the best of cases, they are beautiful and well-crafted exchanges, with all the pressure needed to make sure that we listen to each other and not suffer each other in turn.

Any exchange would be more worthy of its name if it were always managed in this way, at the point of impact of a perfect collision. Still, we must be concerned with the encounter and not with the sliding of one point of view onto another.

There is no meeting without the brushing of bodies or the friction of minds, but not necessarily an exchange.

It is a matter of meeting oneself head on and allowing something of the reality taking place opposite oneself to penetrate in consciousness.

The Internet, like the rest of the world from which it springs, is not in fact a field of exchange, but of confrontation. It is difficult to go beyond the mercantile aspect of exchange to achieve forms of osmotic symbiosis.

It is a pity for us because it is one of the most rewarding aspects of life when it happens. To be united in any kind of lasting way requires a lot of desire and a lot of work. Through a common work, in a bed, throughout a life... we discover over time numerous and skilful forgers in this matter. Exchange swindlers are legion. Those who promote it as an easy and accessible process are certainly the most dubious in my eyes.

It takes time, it takes grace, it takes faith

Desire is also needed. But too many stale exchanges kill it or make it impracticable. Once lost, there is no point in wasting your hands digging up the ground where the source has dried up. Better to go elsewhere, by other means.

Symbiosis can be a goal in itself. In friendship, as in love, or in the presence of an audience, it is better to be truly sincere in laying down one's arms if one wants to give it a chance to appear. Powerful oratory is noticeable in that it does not seek to establish a balance of power. On the other hand, seductive conviction, especially that camouflaged as wisdom, is a more or less slimy and repulsive form that attracts only its own kind.

The sincerely founded thirst for exchange can turn out to be more surly in its authenticity than the partner, the interlocutor or the spectator wishes. It can even be embodied in insult and denigration, so desperate is the low level of desire and risk-taking in the encounter. Sometimes a furtive exchange of affection occurs. We have to catch it in passing, look at it for a while together to see how much we don't possess it, then let it go.