Capítulo 3: Políticas de innovación en el Perú
3.3 Políticas de CONCYTEC
AND THE
FOREST
ARE ONE.
by
Maryse
Larivière
quite humorous. MICHEL
What are you talking about when you get together with the hummingbirds? LAURA
What do we tell each other, me and the hummingbirds? Heu pfuff, well, we have quite complex discussions on contemporary art. Birds are avid collectors.
MICHEL
What is so amazing about wandering in the sky?
LAURA
In fact, you’re completely free, you are not attached to anything, you defy gravity, literally and metaphorically; a paroxysm of voluptuousness. MICHEL
Have you ever tried to move in a hum- mingbird nest?
LAURA
Of course not, it way too small! MICHEL
Yet, you are so dainty! LAURA
Not petite enough, but I sleep in a magpie nest every night. MICHEL
Oh yeah? LAURA
Surrounded by tiny shiny objects, miniature, cute ones... I must admit: I nab them. Be aware when you have me over that sometimes I steal without realizing it.
MICHEL
What kind of object do you usually take with you, tell me about the latest things you have taken away? LAURA
Just now, I have noticed a pair of scis- sors that I like; they are in stainless steel, very shiny.
MICHEL
Here, really? Are you going to take them away?
LAURA Well, maybe. MICHEL
You could take them and replace them with something else?
LAURA
Well, I don’t have much with me here... But you are right, I should do that, it would be more fair...
MICHEL
But give me the list of the objects you
have stolen this year. LAURA
I didn’t steal much this year since I didn’t get out of the house much. MICHEL
What happened? LAURA I was too sad. MICHEL
You were too sad this year? LAURA
I lost my confidence, and that’s unfor- givable.
MICHEL
What year have you stolen the most objects than?
LAURA
During the last year of my studies with you master.
MICHEL
Really, it’s the year when you commit- ted the most felonious takings? LAURA
Indeed, I have a complete collection of miniature objects, and petite artworks. MICHEL
What was motivating you in commit- ting those unashamed swindlings? LAURA
The truth is that I taught myself so this urge to steal becomes a second nature. MICHEL
It was like an experience then? Or, I should say, like an apprenticeship, or an introspective experience. You are interested in the feelings carrying you through stealing these objects? The various feelings you get when you take action, it must be disconcerting, no? What does it do in terms of emotions? What do you feel? Tell me how you feel when you steal an object.
LAURA
I am shy to talk about this with you, even more so because I feel nothing. Nothing more than the usual anxiety of getting through life gives me. I don’t lurk luxury items that I can’t afford, I don’t even need those objects I steal. MICHEL
It doesn’t matter since “He who steals an egg, steals an ox”, no?
LAURA
What I’m trying to explain to you is my spontaneous emotional attachment to the object. The object in itself is more or less important. I stole a grey ribbon, a bobby pin, a handmade porcelain bird, a silver salt spoon... What hap- pens is that I fall in love with the ob-
ject, wait no, I become rather obsessed with the idea of possessing it. MICHEL
It’s quite a particular emotion. Tell me more...
LAURA
I know this is a very bizarre enterprise, not to say absurd and self-contradicto- ry, but that’s the point, it makes exactly no sense since I become completely obsessed. I love small objects, of which I am becoming super obsessed; I just need to have it when I see one. It often happens that I see something and feel the need to take it. I don’t even think about it, I take it and hide it on me rapidly, hence the necessity of its smallness.
MICHEL
You said that you always stole things that had no value for their owner; why is that?
LAURA
As I was saying, it can be a simple bobby pin, but what it really amounts to I think is to create an invisible bond with the person I am stealing from... MICHEL
What do you do with these objects; is it a collection? Do you catalogue them? Location of theft, date, time, name of owner.
LAURA
I organize and display them at home, but I am too lazy to create a classifying system. I know I should at least have an index of sort...but I am not interested somehow. I care more about the thrill that stealing procures me, and how obsessed I become, but that’s beyond caring, of possessing that object. When it happens, all of my being can only think of that...
MICHEL
Once you have the object, are you satisfied?
LAURA
Yes, I bring it home, put it next to the others; they are all small, cute, shiny... MICHEL
This collection of purloined objects, how do you present it in your home? LAURA
On my desk. MICHEL
What kind of space does it occupy? LAURA
A big enough space... MICHEL
A work space? You put them on your desk because these are work objects?
LAURA
I often reorganize them... I love to look at them, to contemplate them and think, there is like an emotional charge and their aura is captivating... MICHEL
But again, don’t you put them on your desk?
LAURA
Yes, I arrange them just like knick- knacks.
MICHEL
But our trinkets, we usually put them on the mantle, no?
LAURA
There is no fireplace at home, remem- ber? I do have a collection of trinkets, fifteen porcelain birds on a tiny blue shelf...
MICHEL
Usually, if it’s not on a mantle, then you install a shelf. If you put it on your desk, that means there is another signi- fication and I would like to understand it... Maybe you use these objects in your work? They must be related to your work since you put them on your desk...
LAURA
They are the result of a process through which I learned to become, I inculcate myself so stealing becomes automatic. At first, I had to really force myself to do it because it felt shameful. It’s an ab- surd idea to begin with anyways; who consciously reroutes their conscience? Now, when I do it, it’s almost natural and totally unconscious. I don’t even think so much on the spot, yet these objects are memory aids of the visual sort. They becomes screens on which I can project all kinds of fantasies, or provide a departure for a journey in the imagination.
MICHEL
Have you ever had the same feelings you get when you steal but for a theft without object. Have you ever stolen something that was not material? Have you ever committed an immaterial theft?
LAURA
Immaterial thefts..? You’re a romantic! MICHEL
Have you ever stolen, hum, I don’t know...
LAURA Ideas?
MICHEL & LAURA
(in chorus) Someone’s heart? (laughter) MICHEL
I don’t know, an image, an emotion, an attitude, a look... Have you ever stolen
someone’s gaze? Have you ever stolen someone’s smell?
LAURA
I just made you believe it was my scent you liked so much in the bedroom when in fact it wasn’t mine! MICHEL
Ha! LAURA
I like to become others, live like they do. Little things such as perfume, an intonation in the voice or a peculiar expression, can be enough to trigger a sense of depersonalization. In any case, there is no one way of being in the world. We can learn how others live, confront and open ourselves to their difference. I sometimes have these very brief moments where I feel I am almost another. Does it ever happens to you? Wouldn’t you like to be another? MICHEL
But I am another. LAURA Who are you? MICHEL
I don’t know who I am, but I am another.
LAURA
Aren’t we all? (long silence) Have we passed the hills yet?
MICHEL
Yes, we can see our house at the top, up there. Have you noticed that all around the hills reigns a panting silence?
LAURA
A panting silence? Meaning an in- tensely silenced breathing sound? MICHEL
It’s because the animals are moved by new feelings.
LAURA
The animals? You think animals have emotions?
MICHEL
They are full of emotions, they have only emotions, they don’t have intel- lect, so they have just that. LAURA
Emotions are intellectualized affect... MICHEL
They are continuously feeling... LAURA
Affects are in the body, they are pre-feeling and guide a being on an instinctual level.
MICHEL
So animals are affected but have no
emotions? LAURA
Emotions are abstract concepts we assign to what we feel. I mean the feelings are real, the categories, well are just a consensus...
MICHEL
Animals do have feelings than, they just don’t intellectualize them like we do... In that regard, are you nostalgic (pause) of the inaccessible? LAURA
Yes, mostly on rainy days. It’s pretty when it rains.
MICHEL
Do you aspire to elevate yourself above the clouds? LAURA To do what? MICHEL To contemplate them? LAURA
To aspirate them, with my mouth? MICHEL
Yes yes, to aspire the clouds in your mouth.
LAURA
And contemplate them with my tongue. How succulent. MICHEL
What do you think of all these jokes on the faraway? LAURA The faraway? MICHEL On the shores... LAURA The lawland? MICHEL
No, more like a space, or surround- ings...
LAURA
a country, the country... MICHEL
The region. LAURA
Like a hole in the ice of lakes. MICHEL
Yes, it’s totally true, effectively. LAURA
I’m often delighted when the rain awakes the plants.
MICHEL
We always bring an anemone within
ourselves, and a rosebud. We bring peas and beans, cabbage, poppies, and we rejoice after the rain. The sky be- comes dark and the sun hides, and we emancipate, and we elevate in the sky. LAURA
It rains breads and cakes, it rains breads and cakes, so why hurry? You see!
MICHEL
Indeed, why should we hurry? LAURA
Yes, it rains cakes! MICHEL
Are you happy in your quest for ber- ries?
LAURA
I don’t like berries. MICHEL I adore them! LAURA Fresh berries? MICHEL Yes. LAURA
Ah it’s too bitter for me. And I always stain my shirt with the juice, in a fash- ion similar to a watercolour. MICHEL
When you paint, do you use oil or water?
LAURA
I prefer oil painting, otherwise it dries too quickly.
MICHEL
You like the fact that it glides, that it’s a lubricant, that the brush follows your gesture. The water-based paint resists the gesture a lot more?
LAURA
At first, the gesture is the same. With oil paint, you can resume your gesture, it’s a lot slower, I have time to reflect on my gesture.
MICHEL
And when you paint your nails, you use lacquer?
LAURA
Ah, my manicure? MICHEL
This here, on your fingers. LAURA
This is what we should have done on the pontoon, in the middle of the lake, all getting nail treatments.
MICHEL
Oh what a good idea! Next time...
LAURA
Lots of colours, its pretty! MICHEL
Can you distinguish the words? Are the words fancy?
LAURA
It’s a secret, an owl’s secret, but never- theless may be revealed to you one day. MICHEL
What, great, what, what? LAURA
Fly to the bell tower with me, and I will tell you everything. I am afraid some- one will hear us if we stay here. MICHEL
If I jump too abruptly, I will become more and more worried. How many things shall I renounce to always live amongst the animals?
LAURA
You explain yourself very well mister the man of bronze!
MICHEL
In the dark night, after all the black crows are perched to sleep, has it ever happened to you to abandon the forest, and seek refuge in the empty cabin? LAURA
I am very sensitive to nature. Once, I could no longer bear my apartment, my street. I then thought it was all very disgusting, and dirty. I had become too sensitive to the trees, but those on my street were aggressive. So I packed away my knapsack, and with my hiking boots on, I left the house.
MICHEL To go where? LAURA
I walked in a straight line in the direc- tion of the mountain, like a woods- woman. Again I was sensitive to the plants; the ones closer to the road were more aggressive, they were sending me electric shocks. After a while, I got closer to nature, a more luxuriant nature and there, it was softer, nicer. It was easier to breathe, the air was purer, more humid.
MICHEL
Were you attracted by the illuminated cross?
LAURA
After climbing the east side of the mountain, I dug a hole and I slept there all night. It was the only place where I could fall asleep.
MICHEL In a hole? LAURA
MICHEL
But tell me, did you fall under the power of a band of rogues? LAURA
No, but it happened to a friend, well not exactly that... She had decided to take a walk on the mountain at night, to realize there were men everywhere hiding in the forest.
MICHEL Everywhere? LAURA
Naked men, everywhere! There was one who was wearing an all white suit, a tall black man, and had unzipped his fly and taken out his big, hard dick. MICHEL
Where was that? LAURA
On the mountain... MICHEL Big like what? LAURA
Black on white... I don’t know. And people fucking everywhere. MICHEL
Can you just go there if you’re horny? Wearing a trench coat?
LAURA
You are a man, so be my guest. MICHEL
You are one too, Mademoiselle Cuckoo!
LAURA
There’s nothing to brag about; you have stolen my eggs.
MICHEL
No, only stupid stuff like wine bottles. LAURA
Oh yeah, and how did you do that? MICHEL
I had a trench coat with very large hid- den pockets.
LAURA
Ah! you and your trench coat again! MICHEL
And then, what have I also stolen...? LAURA
You needed to buy some things to steal? What a little business... MICHEL
I was buying a bottle, and was stealing one, thus it was a half-theft. LAURA
Your own two-for-one special. Have you ever been caught?
MICHEL
Yes, two times. One time, the store owner caught me. He said: “I’ll call the police if you don’t give me money; do you have cash on you?” I did have some cash on me, I had a hundred bucks.
LAURA
You gave him a hundred dollars? MICHEL
He told me: “ Give me all your money or I call the police.” I gave him my hundred bucks.
LAURA Are you serious? MICHEL
He was a bit ill-at-ease... LAURA
No joke, you’ve been robbed! MICHEL
Also the other time... that I got caught, it wasn’t cool. I had gotten parking tickets to top it all, so I got it big time. They put me in prison, and treated me like a real criminal.
LAURA
Aren’t we good here? MICHEL
It seems like it. LAURA
Tears are coming up into my eyes. MICHEL
Compensate them as much as possible. LAURA
Let’s lie down naked on the wood. MICHEL
You often do that? LAURA
The cold wood feels good when its too hot outside. And you?
MICHEL
Me? I’ve never tried to lie down naked on the floor. I’m too prudish to do that. LAURA
Really? MICHEL
The contact with cold and humid wood on the skin...
LAURA
You don’t like that... MICHEL
I sleep naked on a bed, but not on the floor. Maybe under the bed... LAURA
Under the bed? It’s dirty under a bed; there’s always lots of dust balls.
MICHEL
And in the corner, there is a rocking chair.
LAURA
An american rocking chair, and huge coloured candles.
MICHEL
Do you have memories on a rocking chair?
LAURA
That’s a hippie thing, that and asthrays, but no.
MICHEL
Have you ever been to a place where mineral water comes out of the tap? LAURA
I’d like that very much. MICHEL
There are places like that. LAURA
So you always drink mineral water? Does it have bubbles? Is it naturally carbonated?
MICHEL
People buy bottled still water because they get bored to drink carbonated water.
LAURA
Is it why there are crabs in the fields? MICHEL
There is no more room in the lake so they’re obligated to move in the field and become herbivorous.
LAURA
Eating the grass of sea. MICHEL
Why have you lost your clog? What happened to you?
LAURA
I am pretty clumsy, and a little bit scat- terbrain, so I always loose my clothing. Anyways, I prefer to be barefoot so I can stay in touch with the earth, the dirt and sand and grass, and lichen. It was just amazing when we were walk- ing in the forest; moss is so soft under our feet.
MICHEL
I am incapable, I start trembling, and I cry.
LAURA
Can you be lead without resistance? MICHEL
It depends by who. LAURA
You always resist a little? MICHEL
I am a fake passive. LAURA
In fact, it’s impossible when you have such short legs!
MICHEL
The animal that I am? LAURA
And you gather momentum while looking from underneath your cape. MICHEL
Have we seen the whole forest? LAURA
No, we can never see it all, there is always an unknown, there is always a hereafter. There is always a part of the forest we haven’t seen, that’s what makes the forest so tempting.