ROARING SHELTERS*
Antonia Brown & Jacopo Pagin
Text written by Timmy van Zoelen
To devise a Game
and cast a Spell
conjuring up
the Roar
in the Shell
Serotonin, or why it is so easy to open browser tabs, but so much work to close them…
Once, I wished for the sky to split open. I wished, but the sky did not split. In my hatred of a selfish solitude I de-
manded my own loss in ecstasy and took the immensity of the sky by the throat, because it must bleed and cry out.
Then, like a latch secreting a door, I realised that the earth is continually bombarded by the sun…
And so here we are, softly sheltering from it, veiling ourselves, with the secrecy of a paramilitary sect whose
tacit mission is conveyed by it, like missiles staring out of our roguish eyes. Roaring Shelters are open tombs exposing
intestinal labyrinths with vertiginous twists and convulsive turns, reminiscing the writhing of squashed earthworms
wistfully crying the cry of powerlessness that is a prelude to the deepest silence.
Useless as a guide to the night sky the Poeticon Astronomicon is an important source for some of the more obscure
Greek myths. In close relation to this exhibition for instance, it revealed that Triton became associated with posses-
sing a conch shell, which he blew like a trumpet to calm or raise the waves. Its sound was so cacophonous that when
loudly blown, it made the giants take flight, who imagined it to be the roar of a dark wild beast. Let’s have it served up
here as a clear reminder of how the oceanic serves as a cypher for capitalism. Wink.
Through dissecting a few cadavers, we have learned that the ability to roar has an anatomical basis. It often involves
modifications to the larynx and hyoid bone and enlarged internal air spaces for low-frequency acoustic resonance.
To roar, you may want to stretch out your neck and elevate your head to increase the space for resonance. Be warned
though that when you roar, others might feel intimidated. The roar is essentially the sound to make to reclaim anima-
listic sexuality, but no one wants to hear that. Instead appreciate that the roar is a mad laughter that condemns itself
in an attempt to constrain its direct environment.
Make sure not to distil eroticism to sexuality and discard the dregs like dirt under a finger nail. Like Antonia you can
use Caput Mortuum (dead head, worthless remains) as a pigment. Magnificent! Let’s at least attempt to be involved in
acts of pleasure that offer no return to the restricted economies of societal significance that are driven by utility and
the mandate of closed, concise, clear endpoints.
* Roaring Shelter |ˈrɔːrɪŋ ˈʃɛltə| 1 [erotic] resisting to be an “Encapsulated Sale Target”
• Interminable bureaucracy of periodic self-assessment; compulsion – repulsion – impulsion – spasmodic confla-
tion and retraction: they were tired after another day of work in the field. 2 [spiritual networking] “Erosion of Leisure”
• timelines echoing before the lapse: ~ it allows me to shape my addiction and be wrought by my surroundings as I
focus on ~ my efforts/dominant stimuli desensitised (all is dull). 3 [obsessive restricted] acknowledging the restric-
tive patterns of repetitive behaviour in an attempt to being recognized by a specific other (also objects and ideas) or
others (in assembly) as generically distinct and its own separate genus • domestic cathexis or cathectic domesticity •
“Lust Undiced”.
