Donne quelque chose à quelqu’un qui n’en veux pas (2020)

GHEEBRANT, Tania
Give something to somebody who does not want it (2020)

1. Take a roll of scotch tape, the clearest you can find. Lie on the floor. Cut off a ten-centimeter piece. Stick one end to your pinky toe and the other end to the floor. Put your index finger on the point of contact between the scotch tape and your body. Move your thumb as far away from your index finger as possible: roughly twelve centimeters - this will be your measure. Put your thumb on your foot on the opposite side: this is the second grabbing point. Cut off another piece of tape of the same size and tape the first end to your new point of anchor on the floor. You have your second bridge, your second liana, your second magic wire. Repeat the operation always on the left side of your body, again and again. You are slowly moving up your body, point by point, like a rock climber. You lay, you mark, you anchor, you cut, you tape, you stick and you tie, each time, anew, the floor and you. You anchor yourself gradually into the floor.
When you are done with the left side, repeat the operation in your head on the right side, but without moving. In any case you cannot, because you are missing an arm. There are things that only the imagination allows you to do while you are alone. You continue, in your head, and in any case the tape is so clear that you cannot tell the difference between the side of your body that is really taped and the side that is mentally taped. Here we are! You have gone around yourself. Come out of yourself, watch yourself on the floor, on the waves, become a Lilliputian.
Watch yourself from the outside : now you are becoming a mountain, a hairy giant, a weeping willow, a spider caught in its own web.
Here we are: you are Gulliver. Here we are: You are your own statue collapsing.

2 - Simultaneously:
With each piece of tape you will mentally tie two elements. Think of two friends who do not love each other, who do not love each other any more or who have never met. Think of a mediocre writer and a beautiful country, an empty bottle and a beautiful song. Describe their relationship in one sentence. Each sentence sticks itself to the piece of tape, each sentence becomes a bridge between you and the floor, repeat the operation again and again, as many times as you need to go around yourself. If you don’t have friends, if you are antisocial, if you do not love anybody, not even songs, think of a machine, an engine, a battery, think of anything that gives you a little bit of joy. Tie heterogeneous elements together, stick them to your body, make garlands out of them. Make solid gold chains which you will screw into the wooden floor. That’s it, you’re anchored into the floor by YOUR OTHERS. Your gh-osts, your forgotten skeletons. Those whose essence you drank only once, but which you did not re-member. Knock knock - spirit, are you here?

3 - Breathe deeply, as strongly as possible, just like the very first time, just like your first scream. Pftt: the tape comes off, you are detached. Stand up. Pick up the pieces of tape one by one. Make a beautiful compact ball. Get out! Without asking for permission, run, don’t take the lift, run down the stairs, run! You’re in the street: give the piece of tape to the first person you meet.
They will not know. They will never know what you gave them.