judith & neal in the borderland

// at the end of the world, neal waits for judith. before a vast landscape of rock, rubble, and concrete manufacturing plants, he waits. and time waits with him. all else within this expanse know not the force of time, which is the power of movement, no, what the world left in its wake is now cemented in concrete and steel //

// at the end of the world, judith finds neal. cool water in a barren desert, she flows, while all else stays fixed. her power is undeniable. as she enters, time awakes //

// 'two worlds in one' is not a reductive notion. it is not to suggest that two things become one, nor does it mean that two things merely inhabit the same space. two is never reducible to one. difference is not reducible to monological sameness. rather, two-worlds-in-one is a demonstration that makes visible what was not visible before. what was merely a world of concrete and steel, is now transformed into a canvas of potential. the phenomenon of two worlds in one reveals another world within the existing world. not an imaginary one, actual. it is the work of artists. art, takes what is, and shows it as it could be, as it always already was. it announces a rupture in the prevailing landscape of policed categories by a 'foreign' subject– the arrival of the new amidst the old. the binary realm thus undergoes a reconfiguration, or transformation; it becomes differentiated from itself, and reveals itself to be...mixed. here, we are no longer at the end of the world anchored to concrete and cement; rather, we are at the beginning of a new one where red and blue mix to make visible by means of contrast what was not there before– life. //

// from a socio-political perspective– from a binary perspective– a borderland is the necessary side effect of enforced borders, walls, and fences. it is a place forgotten by those who design and finance such barriers, who are far removed from the realities of life at the wall. to them, it is a space of excess and irrelevance: where things are forgotten always exists an excess (that which is forgotten); and where concrete is manufactured, all things turn to stone. it is a place that time left behind. a place that forgot it had to keep up with a world beyond. this, is the ‘binary borderland’; the borderland itself, on the other hand, exists in spite of all this. it is exceptional //

// from a rhizomatic perspective, a borderland is a plane of existence upon which what was, is transformed into what will have been. it is where the remix occurs, where disparate elements– worlds, cultures, histories, energies– collide, mix, and express something genuinely new. the borderland sizzles with potential energy. disparate elements, each with their own potential, when brought together, reveal this potential in each other. their mixture is the actualization of disparate potentials; actualization of potential always expresses something new. and what is new disrupts and ruptures the status quo of policed spaces, and turns them into places of affection, not persecution //

// whereas the border fence is static and man-made, the rio grande is flowing and natural. the fence enforces separation and division, the river signals where two places flow  into one another and mix. the point at which two places intersect is a nebulous expanse of space and time. to say that one is mexico and the other is 'america' is to misunderstand their relation. for there is no real distinction between lands. together, they express a continuity of energy, of which the only difference is perceived and binary, policed and enforced– a consequence of humanism. nature, on the other hand, knows not of boundaries, only of continual ebbs and flows //

// Here, at the end of the world, we find a fence. What is the nature of the fence, that it has the power to determine the limit of worlds?...to designate self and other? // At the end of self, begins the other. But this self/other binary is not a real distinction. It is a fiction sustained by the fence //

// a wall is a kind of body, a structural body of steel and concrete. but not all bodies mark limits. a human body's outline can seem to appear as a border. we see the outline of another body and are seduced by its apparent otherness. but this is not a real distinction, only a numerical and imaginary one. for where does one body begin and another end? what is a body? it is what the hawaiian concept of 'aloha' expresses– diverse parts that come together to enact life joyfully. for what is a body other than the sum of its parts, parts whose relations joyfully agree with one another, that work together to form one unique body? unique, but not distinct. for bodies vary in all shapes and kinds, but one body (human or otherwise) is just another part of an even greater body still. hence, the apparent separation of bodies in space is merely numerical, and not real. bodies, while unique, are always connected– by air, by life, by energy– never separate, no matter what walls may suggest. a wall does not mark a real distinction between one space and another, only a numerical– imaginary and superstitious– distinction. the wall, for all its steely bravado, is just a wall. it is a banal. let's not dress it up to be more than it is. for when we lift the veil of its binary deception and the reductive spectacle of language, what is left is a continuous flow of intertwined complexity and the celebration of how life endures...in spite of walls. //

// what can a border do? ought it do anything but fade into nothing? what does it mean for a wall to be productive rather than inert? a wall that ‘does’ something in terms of production only reinforces rather than mitigate it’s violence. if the wall turned into a 700 mile long taco stand, you think it wouldn’t simply reproduce the exploitative relation between those who live on the affluent side versus those on the impoverished side? not to mention that the wall then becomes something people and institutions are dependent on…for jobs, for capital, for whathaveyou. oh wait…we’re already there //

// a fence is a line on a map. it is the materialization and militarization of this line. it symbolizes a demarcation that separates one space from another. such pejorative lines are fundamental to binary psychology– the patriarchal master's lines that separate self from other, real self from imaginary self. the emphasis here is on 'pejorative' lines– policed lines, lines meant to establish a hierarchy of order. for rivers are also lines on maps, as are roads and bridges. but these lines connect and do not divide. they enable flows and movement through space  //

// the U.s.-Mexico border is the most frequently crossed international border in the world. an e-commerce business would rave about such traffic. hence the sad irony. goods and products move across borders more easily than humans. what is virtual enjoys unfettered traffic flows– data, currency, advertising– while human bodies are detained at the borders. bodies are illegally trafficked in shipping containers meant for bottles of coke. this is what it’s come to…life reduced to objects for consumption. (don't get me started on the perversity of those tiny-homes made out of shipping containers) governments will allow some humans to traffic freely between some nations, while denying the same freedom of movement to others, a freedom that should be a basic human right. on the flip side, when certain immigration policies allow border crossing, they’re intended to net a profit for the host country- i.e. ALEC, SB1070 and the prison industrial complex.  erecting walls, border patrol, police harassment, surveillance, racism…a lot more energy is being put into antagonization than hospitality, into violence than ethics. all these are just a few of the perverse effects of policed borders //

// border fences function to normalize and enforce lines of pejorative differences. and yet, between every binary enforcement, between every attempt at keeping things categorically disparate, exists this nebulous region of infinite mixture– the borderland. the fence expresses the tenuously wonderful irony that reveals a thing as always already other than it is. that despite its function to divide, it also produces the side effect of coalescing and mixing a diversity of cultures and distinct elements //

// the figure of the alien embodies the borderland phenomenon of two, or multiple, worlds in one. not belonging to the one world or the other, the alien appears in the nebulous region between worlds. borderlands can create aliens. but the outer-space around aliens is always a borderland. the sheer gravity of which threatens to destroy the structural integrity of binary vessels. // 

// the curious thing about aliens is that their concept has become so ubiquitous in pop culture that even the 'alien' has become a symbol for what's familiar. thus desensitizing us to the struggle and plight of actual aliens in our everyday midst– those who are unidentified foreign objects, flying beyond the radar of the binary gaze. however, here we find an adequate expression of the alien as subversive art and a reminder or realities rooted in the local atmosphere. //

// judith and neal dedicated their lives to each other here in el paso in the fall of 2017. mxdflz had the honor of documenting their story and exploring the mystery and mystique of the borderland. //

// borders and walls are symbolically and politically divisive, but the affects of their existence are complex. a border is an unfortunate 'necessary evil', especially given a context of suspicion, fear and distrust– we have locks on doors for a reason. and yet, in spite of these dividing-lines that aim to sustain pejorative differences, life thrives, communities intertwine, cultures mix, and something new erupts from the force of these intersecting affects. neither stories nor worlds end at the border. rather, it is where they begin again // 

//written concepts inspired by gilles deleuze, jacques ranciere, and the funambulist. //