Dear friend (December 2009)

I am in Rome on a residency. I have my own flat in a house shared with other artists and writers. I isolate myself from the others. I am sure they are lovable people, but I need to concentrate and think about my work and life in general. I enjoy the simplicity of this life, reading, drawing, writing, walking, eating, sleeping, dreaming. I enjoy it because there is a contrast to my daily life at home where family, friends, work and different obligations take up most of my time. I am not unhappy about my daily life, if only there are pockets of ‘something else’. That ‘something else’ is not easy to define, but it has something to do with a feeling of forgetting and an illusion of eternity.

The people that I view as my friends are closer than ever here in Rome. I have the time to see through their eyes. One friend lent me a book to read on my journey – I read the book and I think about how my friend was reading the book before me. Sometimes a word or a sentence is underlined with a barely visible pencil. Another friend gave me a book related to the darkness studies I am working on. In the bathroom I notice some creases in the shower curtain and see them through the eyes of a friend who is in New York now. I took some pictures and mailed them. A friend in Rotterdam shared some links with me. And one friend living in London recommended a crime novel set in Rome, written by an Italian author. I found the book in a bookstore and now we are reading it at the same time.

I think about the phrase ‘A system of touch’. A psychoanalyst once told me about a theory of touch; this is how we survive mentally, through a feeling of being touched by other people. Not necessarily physically (though let’s not underestimate that), but mentally. I found this phrase as a headline for an article about a visual artist’s work, but the phrase is never explained in the text. I google it and come across braille – the writing and reading system used by the blind. Interestingly this originates from a touch-reading system called night-writing, used by soldiers during war. I also realise that ‘A system of touch’ is the name of a band from the eighties. But whether ‘A system of touch’ is a theory or a text by someone, I don’t know, maybe you can tell me? What I do know is that a system of touch makes a lot of sense to me.