The Alchemical Wall

While we were standing in line, a nice tall gentleman observed spontaneous communication and reactions between my colleague and me and then said that he was glad we were entering before him because our faces would tell him what to expect.

I knew exactly how he felt – – –

After the black-painted hallway leading to the unknown, the minimalistic space opened:

On the wall right in front of me, the precise directions from Mr Gulatieri.

The shelves full of the same-looking, empty-labelled bottles were on the wall to my left.

Quite unexpectedly, I felt anxious:

Which bottle should I pick, and which should I label with the name of my trouble?

Which sentence to break, spilling the perfume out like the blood is spilt from a crashed body?

Then, I spent a moment or two deciding on my role:

Should I play safe, be just a journalist reporting from within the installation, and pick a nicely presentable, and universally troubling word?

Or should I give myself in, get a properly cathartic experience, and probably not publish much?

The words posing the targets on the wall to my right looked like they were crying and bleeding perfume.

In the minimalistic space saturated with traces of other people’s catharsis, the black-and-white quietness resonated with confrontation, fight, and struggle.

I suddenly felt just:

“NO!”
I am NOT emotionally participating in this IN ANY WAY.

I’ve had my share of experiencing the Marina Abramović exhibition, thank-you-very-much, and now I know myself better.

I considered just throwing a nameless bottle to the wall for a while, but that would be wrong—destruction is always easier if we depersonalise or detach ourselves from what we destroy.

I took a pencil and wrote a nicely presentable, but still powerful word that discloses absolutely nothing personal:

Can you imagine the word “WAR” featuring a safe word?

I couldn’t until I faced the Alchemical Wall.

I threw my bottle to the wall – – –

— and – – – it did not break.

It happened because I faked my involvement.

I regretted it, immediately, and – I did not regret it at all.

However, the magic the installation created surpassed the clear instructions and the broken bottle/spilt perfume symbol – the experience won.

I stepped outside with quite a few questions answered:

I knew I could not deliberately break a bottle of perfume, but the experience of not wanting to smell the perfume I was very curious about was utterly new:

It was because I didn’t want to connect the strongest memory of all – the olfactive one – with the act of destruction.

The experience also made me realise why I, among other reasons, refused the idea of labelling the bottle I picked with the name of my precise and intimate struggle:

The choice I made made me aware that this would be the first time I’d named someone’s perfume.
So, since I decided to participate in the naming of my bottle of trouble instead of just crushing the empty label into the wall, I also decided that I wanted a different and uniquely personal context and withheld my personal touch.

Naturally, more questions were answered, but, sorry, I am just a reporter.

I don’t know what the gentleman behind me managed to read from my face when I exited.

Damn, even I could not be sure what my face would have told me at that moment.

But, even if he had asked, I would not have told him anything, except, maybe:

“It works!”