WHAT IS THE MIDDLE.AGE.WASTE.LAND?

 

The Middle.Age.Waste.Land is a dimensionless place, devoid of possessions and distractions, brimming with possibilities that can be realised before any deathbed epiphany. It is vast but small enough to live in your heart. Regardless of age, we sense the Middle.Age.Waste.Land, but only see it once there is more behind than in front. The feeling of alienation, of being an outlier, can now be harnessed. Frustration becomes a navigation system. Should you choose to step into the M.A.W.L, please embrace the opaque and uncertainty. Allow the hinterland of your mind to be heard. Intuition will tell you where to go. Much will be suggested, very little explained. You probably already know the so-called real world is more absurd than your dreams and unwanted thoughts.

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Reality is trivial and sterile, meaningful communication almost impossible, our purchased distractions come with a subsonic soundtrack of futility. Some of us hear it, beneath the high frequency of panic, fear and the barren lust of the living dead, who stagger through the collective crisis of identity, unable to pause and see what is true. In the Middle.Age.Waste.Land it is OK to shout across the misty valleys: ‘is there any real justification for eternal human existence?!’

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The Land sits on four pillars:

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RAGE

MEANING

JOY

LIBERATION

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With clarity of consciousness and conscience the explorer sees the structures and expectations are not in our interests. You knew it on your first day at school, in the first heartbreak, in the false successes, in the constant realisation life will never and always be the same. A rhythm, the ticking of the eternal clock, pulses through the ground, the water, the leafless trees. Its greyness is formed from the black thoughts and white impulses.This place permeates the imagination and paranoia. It is a beautiful disappointment and aches with melancholy. A dark enlightenment, where death cannot be disregarded, a canyon in the universe, which echoes with wasted time and unfulfillment. But there is a cool stream down there, imbued with hope and opportunity.

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There will be erotica, deviancy and anti-sex along the way. Pessimism, boredom and yearning swim in the dull canals, fill the cracked streets, sprout up from the drains, hum along the power lines. The M.A.W.L accepts you, encourages beliefs and ideas that stretch and disturb the mind. You cannot fail or succeed in the Middle.Age.Waste.Land. It knows the oppression, fake disasters, failed ideas and deliberately mad wars have rendered life in chaos. Trauma is its weather, psychic dislocation the climate. The seasons are tiredness, dissatisfaction, nihilism and nostalgia. It is all a barren vista, the purest isolation, a place where one accepts that peace and unity are fantasies.

You will descend into painful and possibly terrifying forces. Your self will flounder in the riptides, but it will not drown. In the hostile water you could discover regeneration. Moving through the M.A.W.L the possibilities of wisdom, play and belly laughs remain. Spiritual emptiness, separation, redemption are some of its outposts.

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The land may be wasted but it is not dead. Tears of true joy can flow, inspired by beautiful words and dark music. This is a quest for the essential vision, a conscious formation of the unconscious, sifting through the genetic and ancestral experiences. It is a slow and final excursion, not physically dangerous, but potentially life-threatening. Trying to find a renewed sense of integrity and authenticity, when time is nearly up, will not be easy. Before illness and decay take hold, the authentic self can be found in the shadows. New life and the dead past meet on each junction, where you can pause and come to terms with your wounds and suffering.

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If you are not ready to check out, you will have an essential and amazing trip.

Do you seek something unknown which might confer meaning upon the banality of life? Do you know what you want? Does anything actually matter?

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In the Middle.Age.Waste.Land there is a chance to move beyond normal understanding.

 

I have chosen to explore the obscure impulses with as much intensity and vigour as possible.

Visions and field reports will be shared via:

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• Video and short film-making

• Live performance

• Music

• Written ideas

• Spoken ideas

• A semi-autobiographical novel

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The expedition is scheduled to conclude 30/03/30.