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Trees, Fires & Exquisite Corpses

It feels timely to be asked to devise a family tree and toconsider the workings of influence. Conjuring a tree requireseffort a trickle of connection is needed, branches extendingfrom each other so one might begin to discern a genealogy

and then dare to speak of a lineage. An act of subtle mentalnavigation is required to concoct a tree, utilising the suspectchannels of memory thus the invitation becomes timely forme as I am forced to see if I can retrieve much that I haveforgotten.

The power influence exerts is indeed potent and one can beundone by its actions which vary wildly from slow, gentleand progressive, almost invisible effects to extremely violentand utterly overwhelming possessions. Silently mouthing thesyllables of that slippery word produces a small snarl then atight moue followed by a grit-toothed grimace. Using thevocal cords it becomes a summons, an ejaculation, a hissand the sounding suggests an invocation, an outwardutterance and then a curse. Influence is not necessarilybenign or beneficial, it can be extremely corrupting too,

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especially when one is able to exert it oneself.There is also a tendency to hoard and guard ourinfluencesas if they were treasures while another aspect of ourguarding is motivated by shame as we bury the trash deep

underground.

A family tree seems an ill-fitting model for this endeavoursince the influences do not simply grow into one another there are too many disruptions and caesuras for that.

I do not see influences with sprouting leaves or buddingneatly labelled nametags.

I could envisage them as a succession of small fires, some

that burn up swiftly and soon die and others that as slowburning embers, dissipate and then flare up again.

As a fire influence burns too many trees.

Welcome to the mixed metaphor mash up that is Influence, achimerical bricolage constructed of all kinds of everythingcollaged and camouflaged together. A family corpse usurpsthe arboreal figures and conflagrations; Le Corps Exquis that

may eventually reveal many surprising forms, yet requires inits creation, elements hidden and unseen.

In each fold there are myriad temporal shifts, in every creaselies an unquantifiable time zone.

Indeed the figure is rather a complex system of concertinafolds shortening and extending spans the shape,impossible to define, is an intricate, delicately deceptive,origami-body, an endlessly rotating corpse.What I present to you is a collage, a cannibalised corpusmade up of fragments that can be picked up or put down atany time. I hope some of my half thoughts and fleetingimpressions lead you down some forking paths of your own.

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