jULeS PhaSe oNe

Phase 1:

Part I: Sewer riding expeditions

A short but confronting portion of my adolescent years has been spent on ridding, walking and climbing through sewers. At face value the experience is regard as unhygienic and dirty. Well most probably, it is.

Though entering an unknown world quietly in existence amongst the living, can free a person of the complications and deceit we function through.

The involvement of this experience for me is a manifestation of striving to be invisible. As from my childhood years I would venture to the darkest corners of my world where my visual sense was useless, although always trying to achieve the impossible [human capable night vision]. It was a curve of post reflective learning, where I’d never set out to have achieved sight through; sound and smell but somehow did. I soon identified that sight could very much be influenced by the other human sensorium particularly sound although practising this unknowingly in years gone by.

The expeditions through Sydney’s sewers seemed to be just as complex as their roads but had a new dimension of decent and smell. The sound passing through the dark dynasty consisted of vibrations and percussion noise overhead by vehicles, trains and building infrastructure. The feeling at times was confronting especially when the sensorium had nothing indicative to associate with but eventually caused a sense of discipline and calm that was re-enforced when I would return to the “normal” world.

To survive down there was to be comfortable not being in control accepting that you were at the mercy of your sense and that not knowing what came into contact with your face, ears or hands would not be your greatest discomfort but rather not knowing what direction you travelled from. Also experiencing the loss of vision and being drowned by fast, sharp and murderous sounds all familiar but yet vague, blanketed by the cold breeze and choked by heat pockets gave one the ability to be alive and see a new world.

The experience is somewhat disciplinary as you are forced to forego one set of senses to make way for another and then back again. The outcome of this ultimately leads to a mild revolution that presents to you what can be a life time question. What exactly am I experiencing?

Parts two and three can be viewd at my Blog

Part II: Reservoir Dogs a film by Quentin Tarantino

Part III: Object of Choice