Modernity’s new man was a landlubber. He charted the oceans but set up camp on “an island, enclosed by nature itself within unalterable limits. It is the land of truth–enchanting name!–surrounded by a wide and stormy ocean, the native home of illusion, where many a fog bank and many a swiftly melting iceberg give the deceptive appearance of further shores, deluding the adventurous seafarer”. There is plenty beyond its shores: madness, fate, the ship of fools.
於是我們撤回海洋,回到移動的狀態與定居者對峙。甚至對峙已然不再存在,移動與水相關,藏在海裡的是洋洋灑灑的未知、瘋狂、與不確定,甚至有一種執狂的歡愉。我們分散,以水分子為掩護,互相連結,以神秘的方式交換流動。
“One thing at least is certain: water and madness have long been linked in the dreams of European man.” He is always haunted by the fear that things might slip back into “the river with its thousand arms, the sea with its thousand roads, to that great uncertainty external to everything.”
Sadie Plant, Zeroes and Ones, p.250