Pyramids! Pyramids! Tribal architectonic reflexes

It has been a while since the latest adventure of our patient from the Bardovci mental institution in Skopje. I almost thought life was becoming too comfortable for him, giving in to medication and therapy, to the sedentary day to day business in the clinic, between books and the TV, between meals, the courtyard  and the bed.

I was so wrong. The man invested months of time and terra-joules of subversive energy to create the ultimate diversion. Bored out of his brilliant mind, and motivated by a series of earlier encounters with the dream of antique national upgrade promoted by the not-so-antique and even less urban new middle class of his home town, he starts the manipulation machinery.

He had already created reality by playing with computers and antique ghosts, he had already gathered experience as a director. Now it is time to take the whole thing to a different dimension. It will have to be an urban earthquake, a make-over of his home town of pharaonic dimensions. Madness should be the engine, but everybody should play their part in it.  He reviews the instruments he needs to use: computer technology is not a problem. Media can be manipulated easily. The same goes for their users. All he needs is knowledge and creativity. Psycho-active cocktails, decision makers, artists and architects concerned with their historic foot-print round up the list of ingredients.

In therapy sessions, our inmate explains his strategy:

You need to think big. You have to know from the beginning that you start a process, which will be self-sustained and that you won’t be able to control it after a short while. But hey, who wants control? The anarchy of creation will itself bring about the agony of destruction. The eternal dualism, doctor, you know… First, one needs to prepare the ground. E-mails to editors, telephone calls under fake identities demanding that action be taken will fall on fertile ground. A series of public appearances by self proclaimed prophets promoting the dream of making Skopje a metropolis is the start. They are easy to convince, no need for drugs, their loss of reality is well documented. TV shows, hosted by servile self-proclaimed journalists are the next step. No need to convince neither the hosts nor their guests of the grand mission. Should there be any doubt left, you spice the whole thing up with heavily sedated wannabe New Age types on small TV channels, who will explain to you that you are a descendent of the Sun and thus superior to any other human race. More spice? A good prayer will always do. On public TV, needless to say. God himself will reply, and his chosen people will act immediately. No drugs needed here either, you’ll see, doc. The process will kick in like a clockwork! You’ll see who’s the crazy guy then! Ah, doc, you will wish I’d never started…

Of course, there will be resistance. There will be academic debates, protests. You just have to serve them bits and pieces. They will jump at them, actionism will defer their focus. Ah, all you need to do is  to martyrize them a little bit. Have a gang or two roughen them up. Football hools or suburb white trash. These guys will do anything for a few grams of speed or crack. Everybody will be busy with themselves, and the masses will be delighted. In the end you just serve them the grand plan, and they will scream in delight. They will feel the power of the Sun, the love of God and the strength of their semen. Nobody will be able to stop the process then, doc! The purifying dynamics of destruction will kick in, and at last, doc, at last I will be in best company. My place will be among my people, outside. I will call you, doc, promise…

After our inmate is  taken to his padded cell, the doctor takes a look into our man’s laptop. He finds an extensive correspondence with editors, politicians, artists, architects, marketing agencies, football club owners, and this:

Vision? A classic…

• architecture
• Balkans
• Macedonia
• Skopje
• Skopje church protests
• urban politics
• urbanism