The streets are filled with an abundance of tactile experience we seldom avail ourselves of. And the tactile-imaginary is the most underused inner organ of them all. Even in our dreams, touch often plays second fiddle to visuals, to narrative and emotion. In the following experiment, I decided to explore this tactile-imaginary. To stretch that underused muscle, and see what strange new worlds might open at my fingertips.
INITIAL CONCEPT: Petting Zoo
Our world is a petting zoo. If only we’d let it be. Stretch out thy skeletal fingers (tentacles?) and stroke firm at this, the ever-changing zoo. Be not afraid of the skin-staining dirt, fear not at the bite of the traveling germ. Embrace all possibilities. Swim in the dank, marvelous Unknown of your city street’s offal.
First, choose thy desired, desiring animals. Be they goat, be they donkey, or lamb?
For myself, on this first of finger excursions, I chose the four following creatures: Elephant, Salamander, Gila Monster, Slug.
I now set out to find these tactile entities. Hidden among the highway cast offs, masked behind a thousand layers of visual camouflage…
[…that trash bag is no trash bag, friend. It is a dung beetle!]
My framing in hand, I depart.
–
Zoo Trek
The Gila Monster
I touch one hidden animal after another, looking for my chosen. Yet nothing feels quite right when I interrogate it with my fingers. Instead, I am finding other half-guessed animals, shy little creatures which skitter away at the touch. Still, the experience is quite disorienting overall. An unseen universe is opening up for me, I am reading and interacting with the landscape in an entirely new way.
Finally, on the corner of Moreland and Ponce De Leon, I find my first animal. My Gila Monster! Cars speed by as I gaze lovingly at him. A hundred eyes watch transfixed, as I reach out my trembling hand. And then I pet him. I touch Gila, and am amazed. A total tactile confirmation; this could be nothing else. My gila monster reacts very little to this caress. Merely gazes up slyly, and returns to a very long sleep.
Elephant
I find a herd of elephants in Little 5 Points. No head, no legs, no tail, but I can feel the truth. Rough, wrinkled, old. Heading towards god knows where, in the slowest, most imperceptible of motions. Covered in stickers and graffiti, tricking all with their silence. Hiding in plain sight. I touch them, and they respond to my touch. A current passes between us, and we give each other a sort of inner wink. We’re in on the secret now–are you?
Salamander
Truly a salamander is the most common creature in Atlanta at this time, for I think I have cataloged at least 5 or 6 of these odd little creatures. Many are colored orange or yellow, and can be heard screaming out a warning of some kind, things like “CAUTION”, or “CALL BEFORE YOU DIG”. A defense mechanism, perhaps? Others are blankly white or transparent and have moister skin, yet are somehow more disturbing to me, despite their lack of any scream.
Slug
Signs of him are everywhere. One sloppy slug trail after another, crossing my path. Behind dumpsters, in driveways and across streets. All is lubricated. And yet? No slugboy in sight. No final boss. My first three chosen, they were found quite quick. And yet with this guy? It’s all just hints, all just whispers. Little microscopic teases. After about an hour of walking, I get the strong and unmistakable sense that he is close by. I rush behind an Italian restaurant, knowing I’ll catch him at last. Unfortunately? It seems I’ve been left in the lurch again, because it’s just another slug trail. A trail, leading up to a drain pipe. Leading up to a roof. Seeing no safe way to follow the villain to his final hideout, I decide to give up the chase. Not every surrealist hunter bags his game, I guess. Unfortunately.
I speed home now, ready to catalog my finds. And non-finds. I burst through the door, resisting the temptation to immediately wash potentially pestilential hands. Hands that have touched a hundred strange creatures of unknown pedigrees…
No, I let the holy germs seep deep inside the keyboard, impregnating all my wandering words…
ZOO TREK
