WINDOWS | Sebastián Rojas Windows look towards the outside, windows light up the inside. A ray of light comes through the window while the world outside is falling to pieces; we watch live on Facebook as each piece breaks off and I like it. Reality is always mediated by something else: a gadget, a camera, a screen, probably powered by a lithium battery, a mineral mined from the bowels of the Atacama Desert. A desert being bled to death for the sake of science and technology, being bled to death in order to finance the political establishment, being bled to death in order to maintain power, being bled to death for the benefit of just the very few, a desert agonizing there before our captive gaze. A mountain disappears and nobody says a word. Windows illuminate our private space, but also open onto the outside, revealing the nooks and crannies of our home, the stains, the debris, the dust under the rugs, the family space. Community mindedness turns into something else, almost to the point of becoming a sort of cushy prison. When out of nowhere time was put on hold we realized the importance of thinking about being, about reconnecting with our insides, because everything on the outside –a faithful reproduction of cancel culture– is cancelled, toppled, torn apart, postponed, eliminated. After being in this cushy prison we will not be the same. We will go back to reorganizing the boundaries, the new confines mediated by algorithms that turn us into half human, half machine. Reality viewed from a screen, that at some point during quarantine seemed to me like the face of a friend. The crisis has put us face to face with the transformation of our society, the insanity of a system where speed and efficiency are everything and health is cast aside, while bodies keep piling up in plastic bags. Gastón speaks of agony, Sebastián doesn’t say anything, Graciela reflects upon private space, Cristina raises questions about the landscape and Fernando thinks about the future. Each one from their own sidewalk, from their own border, from their own window.
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