after “Erratic” by Julien Charrière at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2022
Dreaming, I reenter the art installation alone, pass a staged
still of the artist blowtorching an iceberg, and confront two
projections of ice— one whole wall, one levitating— and
the deafening of their grainy, low-frequency crush, the groan
of flow, static and grinding— I’m disoriented by the scope—
craters the size of fingernails, cavernous glaciers miles wide,
are indistinguishable, churning, on loop, captured by a drone
flying backwards, slowly, two flashlights its crossed, stunned
eyes, spotlighting— it should be invisible, until it isn’t, in a shot
of water still enough to reflect it bobbing under ancient blue-white,
rippling, backing up from the film, the screens— it’s in the exhibit
where its gaze turns from ice to me— my hands become hands
controlled from a console by someone awake— the ice-noise
screams— the player selects a weapon, arms me with it— the drone—
I wake swinging punches into the night’s still and empty air.