Somewhere on the Silk Road

M V d B

Somewhere on the Silk Road

Covid-19 is a crisis beyond doubt - which means mechanisms of shock doctrine - as described by Klein are acting upon the worlds as we - read into this what you want and dream about - without dogma of positive outcomes and non-violent faith keeping. Which geo - ideology is doubling - down right now the minds - media and more are filled - to the brim with single focus - making movement more - easy for certain powers?

a summer night

somewhere on the new silk road

beneath a shiny silver moon / in a container city

that was / more or less the size of Calais / before the crash

whispers of young voices and a fluttering of sneakers on grit

faster damnit / catch up / keep close to the pounding heartbeat

with some quick slits of the pliers / and gone through

the fence in an instant / out of the floodlights into

the dim / corridors of metal boxes

to hidden cargo

the next morning / in a Confucianly designed office space / there is a manager

with questions / why didn’t the system notify us / immediately / now the birds have

scattered / no alarm / and this system is supposed to be state of the art / full recognition

get Megvii on the line / those ching chongs / better have an explanation / we all could hang

M Vd B1 is a contemporary artist working and living in Brussels. He’s a jack of all trades: active as a poet, researcher, theatre maker, and curator. For this piece he was inspired by the destruction of the Hong Kong democracy and the signing of the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment. 1 maartenvandenbussche.be

[beep / beep / beep / miaow / miaow / miaow]

SAN ZI MAO PA DAO SHUNSHU ZU SAN / a young Asian man in a hoody and blazer appears on the screen / I am so sorry sir security

expert san my Chinese is / interrupted / learn the language loser / MAO MAO MAO he counts the words on his fingers / three cats

that’s the verdict / most likely lured by the aerosols released by yesterday’s shipment of salmon / once hailed by Norwegians as pink

gold / European fish transformed into a staple of traditional sushi cuisine / all thanks to a clever marketing campaign / now just

another market / dominated by those yellow squinty-eyed fuckers / what is it

gin sputters the manager / gents people persons /

that’s it / they cut a hole / breached a container / ripped open fillets and whole fish / meat everywhere / going off in the sun / rotting

we have proof / a picture / made with the mass-produced smartphone of a nameless and flexible intern / the cheapest model / cats

don’t act like that / qing kautau could we xiexie / the camera footage before annotation and recognition / with due respect / xiexie

again / I know it’s abnormal / the manager stammers

oh you are in trouble / white boy / the chink grins and bleeps out / the footage

three bodies in nothing but sneakers running fast / zoom in all over their naked skin / a pattern of black lines and strange polygons

flashing in the moonlight / algorithmic camouflage / heard some rumours about it / but never / the screen goes black / the manager

looks at the intern / the intern looks back / you are the one who discovered this / he says clinging to his desk / I am sorry sir sorry is

never

one has a job at the delta works / the walls that keep

they work in shifts / so now this one is snoring in bed

ceilings / we’re on the eleventh floor and there is puke

who bought the flat in full when her husband died / in

view / their old house felt too big / so she sold it / can

door along the dimly lit corridor / the crazy cat couple

jobs to cover rent / litter and cat food / organic / they

then I prefer old Kev / my left-door neighbour / used

never a dull moment / always an extra beer on hand

all the stuff actually / hasn’t left his room since normal

of my own / not like those poor souls / on lower floors

eight / or even more / causing trouble / understandably

the air / flickering with blue dots / here we go again / you

like tiny black ants / all the way down / but they don’t enter enough

the water at bay / requiring continuous maintenance

in a single-room flat / between concrete walls and low

on the elevator floor / in the corner / lives old Kathrine

the outbreak / windows on the corners / great harbour

you believe it / a house with a garden all around / next

they’ve got nine of them and no life / working double

are young / twenty-somethings / probably vegetarians

to be a big shot academic / head full of crazy theories

I do his shopping / healthy stuff too / not just alcohol

became new / still I shouldn’t complain / got a place

sharing what space they have left / with five six seven

speak of the devil / with the buzz of drones / sirens in

look deep into the window / see the police pulling up

the tower / not this time / not now / as if like a miracle