Auszug aus: "SUGGESTED ROUTE IN GRAZ. EIN KUNSTPROJEKT VON CALOGERO FERLISI", entstanden im Rahmen des Programmes "Pépinière européenes pour jeunes artistes" im Sommer 2003 in Graz
NUMBER SEVEN TRAM
Inside the Tram.
People. Too many people for such a small, self-propelled space. People going who knows where. People with just their direction in common. People spending the whole day travelling from one terminus to the other.
Maybe they had lost the reason for their actions too. But they didn’t look at me with complicity. There seemed instead to be disapproval in their glances. I couldn’t ask for their understanding or sympathy.
Bodies rubbing against strangers’ bodies. Sweat and perfumes mixed in my nostrils, nauseating me. I could smell the odour of their sexes.
I heard my heart beating louder and louder. My ears couldn’t stand the noise raging inside me.
Air, not enough air in that orgy.
I couldn’t breathe, the walls were getting nearer, space was closing in. All around those cunning devils tormented me with a kaleidoscope of faces drawing closer to me. The eyes they fixed upon me were hitting me. I was bleeding.
But I had to press on towards the city, I couldn’t give up this time.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of that human-infected air and whispered: “Me! Me, where are you?” I could feel their bacteria in my throat.
Difficulty swallowing.
I leant against the window and tried to open it. Broken. I couldn’t escape by that exit. I gazed at the shopping bags lying on the floor. They looked like insuperable obstacles between the doors and me. I stopped calling for Me and people no longer paid me any attention.
Trembling, I reached the doors: an obstacle race through people and packages. Neither wanted to touch or be touched.
When the tram stopped I got out and looked anxiously around.
Paralysis. The situation had got even worse.
