My skin is taut and tightens further. I am my mother’s child and her mixed bag of bodily symptoms. This is my platform at the tip of the city where I try to keep a safe distance but fail. I face the port and practice my daily regime. On most days I feel obliged to run the trials until I find an error.

I no longer know the distinction between the toxins I’ve agreed to and the ones that I haven’t agreed to. Some I chased after alone on lurid nights, some surrounded me quietly and haggled for years.

I’m every host, carrier, and patient: after an invasion of autonomy, I’m beside myself! Beside my contained and obstacled self. My skin floats away and I’m the most exaggerated mess of connected parts this side of the Mediterranean basin.

Every caring transaction brings with it an array of sites for potential violence. This city like all others is built on long chains and subtracted labor and cunning language and all we can do is preach and march and attend seminars.

Sometimes I think we live in the dregs of a world, but I remember there’s always room to be worse off. When we swam in trash, we did so from the comfort of our own kitchens. You step into my world and we swim together. We reach dry land and run back towards where we can get a better view.

XX

Controls:
Movement: W, A, S, D or Arrow Keys
Interaction: Left Mouse Button

A project by Bassem Saad for the web residency program by Akademie Schloss Solitude and ZKM.

Thoom and Pad Fut, Chicago-based artists and musicians, contributed the sound. W. F. Lee, artist, game-designer, and writer, wrote the code.

Read more here.