wolfgang flatz at CELLA show, via San Michele, 25, roma

in parasitical mode, the moon was waning and my hormones were coming out. all i wanted was red wine and popcorn, but first the prison cells at the opening of Cella, a show organized by the university of innsbruck, austria at an old correctional facility in trastevere. each cell held an artist installation.

one of the cells was boarded up, the sign on the door said, 'SOLITARY CONFINEMENT' (in english). the window was covered in the front pages of La Repubblica with a little hole in the bottom. i peeked in and there was man in prison uniform at a desk pushed up against the desk. this was the austrian artist, wolfgang flatz, who made a lot of noise a few years ago by dropping a dead cow full of fireworks from a helicopter onto an abandoned building in berlin. i could only see his torso and hand holding a cigarette. he wrote in german on a piece of paper, fast, chaotically, like he was over-stimulated by the burning cigarette. old-time music played on the radio on the desk. there was a clock. it looked cozy with a bed and small bookshelf. i wanted to go in there, curl up and bleed all over the bed.

"that's nothing like solitary confinement," a young boy, maybe 16, said to me behind my shoulder.
"o no? what's it like?" i said.
he said that when he was in prison he fought with someone and they put him for 6 days in solitary confinement.
"there's no light, you don't know what time it is, you don't how much time passes. you don't have pencils or papers or books or music. they give you food two times a day."
"you eat in the dark?"
"yeah, and the cutlery is plastic. this isn't real at all!"
"it's not supposed to be real."
"yeah."