RETRACTING PLEXUS

Word Count: 713 |
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by Dimitra Ioannou
010: JUDGE

with PLEXUS ELASTIC


a video by ANDREA GARCIA VASQUEZ

how swipeable how fluctuant additive and casual

the capital’s dreamlands of order are covered with mirrors,
once inside, one can only reflect reflections and ask for less exposure,
such an absurd demand, appearances are representation’s commodity,
we need that, we need to fit and adapt, satisfy, assume, condemn
and differentiate ourselves from the anomaly

smart cultures produce paid content
a showroom of empty values
phoney rhetoric jelly

smart courtrooms are open twenty four hours a day
with integrated color schemes for justice
if I judge you, is on false promises

down in the depths the trial is recurring and exhausts all my resources
whoever controls the factors of justice, controls my memory and sensors
I’m a law-abiding citizen running backwards

## JusticeEntagledByIdeologicalDebris ## RubberBarriersTargetPoliticalVariants ## IdeologicalPlexusSucks ##

my courtroom is chronologically displaced and reflects a nameless structure
I wear barbarian make-up, drink barbarian water, say barbarian jokes,
I keep track of sentences that cancel me, I judge the judge who spies on me,
there is no money in it, unless that judge saves money by canceling my culture

## AmendTheChargesNow ## UnplugGenetics ## ReformYourSmartJustice ##

Themis, with the ancient social bond tail,
come out of the ash and fire debris, the cleared land,
the wind farms, the slaughterhouses, the prisons,
let the pigs escape from their narrow farrowing crates,
resurrect the tortured and the slain, hold wakes for the dead,
dance with the monkeys during thunderstorms, dwell in herds,
hunt down the poachers before they get away, throw away our carcasses

## ThemisWandersThroughTheBurningComplex ## IWishIHadATail ##

I’m giving you a picture of that which gapes wide open,
that which is vast and may generate some kind of rupture

## AListOfReactionsRevealingABrokenChain ##


PLEXUS ELASTIC

Two bodies move through a landscape of virtual and physical realities, sharing their own perceptions and understandings around the behaviors, sources, and variable forms of judgment. How do we navigate our own judgments and allow ourselves to be judged? The motion and meaning of “pivoting” repeats itself throughout the video, implying the many-faceted, multi-layered versions of reality we can constantly be experiencing if we allow ourselves to perceive it that way. The characters go through lists of the different grounds one may judge on, as well as the make-up of the material bodies we can base and center these values on. This video was made and inspired by conversations Andrea Garcia Vasquez had with Dimitra Ioanou over a one-month period in preparation for this publication. Some phrases and words come directly from those conversations and a Google Document the two shared while collaboratively discussing judgments. The voices are AI-generated and the video footage is an assemblage of found footage, 3D animations made by the artist, and personal video documentation of Florida, where Andrea Garcia Vasquez often goes but does not really enjoy being.

Andrea Garcia Vasquez


DIMITRA IOANNOU writer

Dimitra Ioannou experiments with narrative or anti-narrative forms, employing various media (writing, photography, publications). Her book Electric Sarcasm was published by Ugly Duckling Press in 2020. She is also the author of the experimental novella Soy Sea, and her poetry has been published in magazines such as Stand, Splinter, MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture, DATABLEED, and Blackbox Manifold, among others. Her (video)poems and photos have been presented in exhibitions in Greece and/or in publications internationally. She is the editor of the literary and arts magazine A) GLIMPSE) OF) and is based in Athens, Greece.

ANDREA GARCIA VASQUEZ artist

Andrea Garcia Vasquez (b. 1992, NJ, USA) works with traditional and contemporary art-making methods to process observations and questions about the human and non-human relationship. She received her BFA in Visual and Critical Studies from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 2014. She later studied at the Art Academy Leipzig (HGB), receiving a Diplom Degree (MFA) in New Media: Installation and Space with Joachim Blank between 2016 and 2020. She currently lives and works in Leipzig as an artist, writer, teacher, and art mediator. Find her on Instagram.

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