The red

I’m usually out at night during the ripe hours of the city’s silence. Passing non existent footsteps, gracing street lights with no weight, pushing nothing but air and dust sparks from day old construction workers. The weight of the lens moves heavy on my shoulders with nothing to capture but the shadow I hear as I walk on light. Crossing street poles, cracks on the floor, visualising a future on naked mountain scapes overlooking colours of Barragán to keep the night interesting.

The song changes and the mood of the city pushes along with it. With an aura flashing red, I squint at the empty street in front of me in anamorphic.

Something seems surreal about the air tonight.

I can’t quite put my mind to the feeling. Like a negative being funnelled through a black bag to reveal the truth of the moment, minus the moment itself.

—

I need to keep moving and continue the assignment. Passing York, I get to the corner of Vapiano and take a breather. Nothing. No soul in sight.

I walk up towards an empty shop front basking with old newspapers covering where merchandise would be on display.

Sirius plans revealed.

The old brutalist spot near The Rocks. Reminds me of a photograph that I’ve taken on countless film rolls when dollars weren’t a thing.

Opening night: March 3, 2021. 11.47-11.52pm.

What a strange window, I thought. I look to my phone for a reading. It’s 11 : 33. I got time. The assignment can wait.

Whilst walking I couldn’t help but think of the numbers. I’ve always taken an extra thought when it came to numerology.

1 + 1 + 4 + 7 + 1 + 1 + 5 + 2

22

2 + 2

4

Interesting. It doesn’t remind me of anything.

Meanings come from the most intuitive attachments. As abstract as they are, I always feel that they will all reveal. Timing is everything.

3 + 3 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 1

11

1 + 1

2

That’s cool. I didn’t think about it too much after that.

Enough time passing, lost in the trance of thought and coincidence, I approach a viewpoint of the Sirius building. I’m roughly 5 minutes away and can see the top of this beautiful metabolic piece of a structure.

My view suddenly turn in on itself as I gaze upon a light that begins to leak from a near by lane way. People I thought.

The cement feels rockier then normal. It’s possible that there’s been construction again recently. The city has been in debt to construction since I can remember. New trams in place, new money replacing old remnants of a land across from the rest of the world.

It’s getting brighter and vibrant. If vibrant was a feeling it would be this exact moment. It’s as if the frequencies were protruding through the walls and a source of divinity was on its way. I look back and it’s pitch black, quiet, no cars, no humans, just me, my lens, numbers and this assignment.

Turning the corner I see a pyramid of light in the middle of an empty lane way. It’s the louvre! If the louvre was in a empty side street at The Rocks.

Its presence has been awaiting a soul. Without a moment of hesitation, I walk towards the light.

As I walked closer an orange beam boomed brighter beneath the surface, rising high to the axis of the louvre shaped light form. It’s as if the day was casting its presence earlier than expected. The existence of time slowly drifted away, as I became one with this divine experience. In the near distance an off white page from a little black notebook hovered over nothingness. I could not comprehend the fleeting moment except for the desire to hold onto its surface.

I leaped into it and held it in my palms. Sweaty yet the surface left no imprint. I turned the page and nothing. But this time it didn’t feel like nothing, there is something for me to find here. I felt lighter then normal. Looking down my lens wasn’t on my shoulder anymore. I turned around but the force of the light had a mind of its own. Roaring, unsettling to the bones that kept me upright. I had to keep moving. I turned the pages searching for an answer. No. I turned the pages searching for a question.

May I draw?

Only with your mind.

Who said that? There was no voice here. Nothing written on the page. But the voice that posed the answer felt clearer than ever.

Only with your mind.

Without hesitation, I thought of the light, the orange beam and the voice. A stranger’s voice, unlike my own, yet something I must own right now.

As I kept these motifs in my mind, orange drips of paint splattered amongst the page with textures quite similar to the collages i’ve experimented with in the past. As present as I became to the moment, holding a hand out to opportunity granted by the forces of intuition and lack of overthinking, a painting submerged from my mind onto the paper.

Manifesting all that I dream of, aspire for and visualise, falling into the form of reality with each breath I take. Right here, in front of me.

With three last letters to scribble, the initials RRM appeared onto the bottom right hand corner. My hand pulsating to the syncopation of my heart beat. The painting wrapped its world around mine and drew me in. I could hear auctions in the background and the words $20,000 being said repeatedly.

In a flash, I awoke from the stoop of my seat in the auction house. I won the prize. Where was I just before? Is this a story for another day or another time. Did my mind take control in the corner of this gallery. Where was the light?

My assignment. What was it again?