Wreck’ em for the Futur(ist)

Text for radio soundwork made as part of Music for Empty Spaces

[there are different voices here. Sometimes of the street. Itinerant and ranting.]

{itineranting}

So.
It’s like, in the past they believed in the future. That we would be shiny, and it was optimistic. And now we believe that the future is grim and the past was an idyll. It’s like. Somehow, we missed out on a reality that was rosy. A now that was… the summit of our dreams. Like we were climbing a mountain and then, now, suddenly, we’re already on the other side. Over the Hill. But we were never actually at the top.

So.
It’s like, everything that was made, that was built, that…smelled of the future. all of that is left to rot… And they build things that look like… shit. That don’t say anything about dreams and light and possibility… except… unless, its just about money… and coffee.
And, it’s like, you wonder – How did we let this happen? When did we stop caring? The details in the stonework and the tiling… The neon sign. When did we stop believing? In the future. In things getting better. The shape of things, and things to come. Not just saying it but believing it.

So.
It’s like, I’d almost, literally, rather have the ruins than the hopeless alternatives. The knock it down and build again, something that’s never going to last long anyway. Why bother? Because it is rosy and optimistic and trips off the tongue of better things to come? That there is a happy land round the next corner? No. This just smells of coffee and stinks of money. Money that no-one’s got. Borrowed for building and borrowed for buying. Borrowed money, borrowed time. Borrowed from somewhere, borrowed from nowhere. Borrowed from the future that will never come now because it has already passed us by. Borrowed time. Perpetual present. Of; ‘this is how it is’. Austere. Unforgiving. Hopeless. Demoralised. Dumb-founded. Death rattle of all our dreams. Buddleia bushes growing from their rafters and their beams.
But, better this that no dreams at all, just plastic and salesmen, developers – baristas.

And now it’s as though they don’t even wait for the rot to set in, but pull things down that are still working. Make them anew. Except less new. Removed of the layers of meaning, of dreaming. Less loved and less loving. Less loved because less loving. Because that doesn’t seem to be part of the deal now. Not making a vision. Not caring. Not making the future. Not dreaming. It is pulling down visions and building a moment. Building a now that is dated and aged before the doors even open.

So.
It is as though, in the past, they really believed in the future, and now it is all lost and gone. And we are riding the downslope and selling our dreams for a handful of coppers that we won’t even see.

So.
These are not memorials to the past, they are memorials to the future.
To hope and dignity and humanity and love.

So.
These are not memorials to the past, they are memorials to the future.
To hope and dignity and humanity and love.

So.
These are not memorials to the past, they are memorials to the future.
To hope and dignity and humanity and love.