In general, I like moving, and just as I learned to walk, I quickly started asking to learn how to drive. As a kid, I already understood that if I stayed in Guayaquil, I would be driving forever. There is strong neglect from the public system. The city has inherited an infrastructure of disorganized urban planning, along with strong governance and political influence from a Christian right-wing political party. Mayors have prioritized populist governance and low public investment in infrastructure, making it physically difficult to move, keeping everyone slow and bound to the car. An isolating device, a separated space of care. Does my incubator have an umbilical cord? Can I stay in touch within this separation? Can people look at me through the window? Hello??? I like you... I want to connect. Open the windows, breathe in and out the fear of being robbed. The longer you are separated from the threat, the harder it gets to understand when fear is rear, real, or just a feel.
All the driving I did as a child, I’d better continue as an adult, since both public transportation and walking remain neglected systems. That neglect is met with absurd populist decisions. For example, the implementation of a spectacular means of transport called the Aerovía, which works like a lift (similar to those in ski resorts). This Aerovía requires large building-like stations, an entire cable system, and imported cabins. Despite being a huge investment and offering wonderful scenic views, it is not promoted as a touristic addition to the city but as a solution to the lack of transportation. Nevertheless, it connects only five stations. The robotic operation came years before the implementation of simple bus stops—where, for years, bus riders have been forced to wait without clear signage, no seat to rest, no map, and no roof to protect from sun or rain. Not to mention that zebra crossings are almost nonexistent.
On December 5, 2020, I dreamt that one of the Aerovía cabins fell. A few days before, I had taken magic truffles. In my dream, the cabin fell onto some mushrooms that made people fall from the sky and walk through the street, naked. After that day, I woke up and read the news: a Whale Tail sculpture had stopped a metro line in Rotterdam from crashing.
Drawing I made the morning after the dream Image I found online of the metro being saved by the whale
It is exhausting to be a guest in somebody elses house forever 1
or to be a guest in your own house, or your own body. And when that is the case, who is owing it?
Get out of the car!
Take the car where you want! Drive! Drive! Drive!
2. Bhanu Kapil in Incubation: a space for monsters