Meara Sharma
Shoot
People like to say they don’t know where their ideas come from, like they just fly into your mouth while you’re walking around, like God tickles you with a feather or something, but I think that’s bullshit, I know exactly where my ideas come from, I know exactly where this one came from, so yes, officer, I can certainly tell you how I got the idea, I can tell you everything, because it’s pretty straightforward, it’s not a long story, it all happened today.
I was stressing hard, because I was running out of time, I was under the gun—ha, sorry—I needed something for crit in two days, something really fire, really brilliant, batshit, savage, something never-before-done, boundary-pushing, genre-defying, urgent and necessary, timely and timeless, et cetera, et cetera, because it was getting close to my degree show, and I’d already gone through about nineteen thousand ideas, I was about to be two hundred grand in debt from the Best Art School On The Planet, and if I’m going to be two hundred grand in debt from the BASotP, I better figure out how to get Saatchi and Zwirner to know my name.
So, it’s Saturday morning, and I say to Lacey, get up, we’re going out, we’re going hopping, we’re going gallery-bopping, I’ll buy you as many matchas as you want, I’ll swipe for you, I’ll chat for you, I’ll flirt for you, I’ll do it all, but you’re coming with me, we’ve got pavement to pound, we’re going to pillage as many project spaces as it takes for me to think of something, because I was remembering what my professor liked to say, which is that it’s okay to be a magpie, if you find a shiny object, it’s okay to steal it, it’s okay to make it yours—you know, multiple discovery theory, we’re all swimming in the same water, we’re all computing the same data, the crossbow showed up in China and Canada at the same time—well, it’s not exactly the same thing, but you know what I mean.
So we’re off, and it’s one of those moist sunny days, cool and warm at the same time, the sort of day that makes you horny, makes you believe you could nurture seedlings, rescue a fallen bird, and we’re in line for matcha, and I’ve already seen three people from the app, and Lacey’s going on about getting back out there, she’s ready, she’s beach-booty ready, take the plunge ready, and I’m instantly fed up with her, because she’s been gearing up to get back out there for three years, which makes me realize that I have been getting out there for three years, I’ve been on seventy-something-odd dates, which means I’ve spent at least two grand on cocktails, because splitting the bill equals feminism, and I can count the number of times I’ve had sex on less than one hand, and yet, the app tells me that right now 3,487 people within my five-mile radius like me, and all of a sudden I’m seething, my lid’s flipping, my blood’s boiling, and I decide then and there that I’m done, I’m an incel, I’m a femcel, I’ve got more important things to do, which obviously Lacey doesn’t like, because she’s broody, but anyway, I’m losing the plot.
We stop at Clara/Ishiguro where there’s an installation of half-inflated pool toys limply swaying, on account of a large fan, to “I Wanna Hold Your Hand;” it’s by a Korean artist who says he’s interested in social alienation and the death of the self vis-a-vis one’s inner child, which reminds me that I need to call my brother, whose inner child is regrettably alive and well, and reminds Lacey that she needs to book her vacation, and wouldn’t it be nice to just go somewhere with a pool and nothing else, just a stunning manufactured water body and absolutely nothing else to do, no idiosyncratic museums or prehistoric caves or disappointing street food, just glass and silver and AC, nothing gothic or rococo or crumbling, wouldn’t that be heaven, for a change, and we briefly ask ourselves whether our true nature is that of an artist or that of a product marketer, before continuing on to Lick Space, where some bro captivated by the construction of celebrity has spelled out Britney Spears in duct tape on the floor, which doesn’t keep us for too long, and then Nineteen Gallery, where I’m annoyed to see that Salvatore Accorsi—don’t be fooled, he’s from Salinas, not Sicily, and his real name is Sam Atkinson, he changed it in undergrad so he could join the eurotrash frat, and it’s worked out beautifully for him—has arranged an assortment of expensive California wines around a basin full of burgundy liquid, which makes me livid, because Sam Atkinson never would have actually poured away all that godly nectar, he would have slurped every last drop as research for his solo show about the emptiness of pleasure—which, maddeningly, adds to its charm.
What else: tiny fetuses on giant canvases at The Retreat, a pile of blue-tooth speakers spewing sounds of torture at Valentina Moto, some furniture that looks like toothpaste, grainy photographs of mules—something to do with asexuality as a legitimate response to twenty-first century life—and I’m starting to get a bit anxious, a bit frenetic, everything’s shit, and nothing’s reacting in the cerebrum, nothing in the encephalon, no synapses firing yet, if anything I’m ready to throw in the towel, ready to ask for my money back, Art is dead and I’m certainly not bringing it back to life, I’ve got nothing to say, nothing to contribute, give me a co-working space and a job in branding and I’ll become a slightly overweight normie who can afford all the smoked salmon and facials I desire. But then we get to Blackchapel.
In the main room there’s a massive video piece—three-channel, if you must know—showing this guy, a stunning specimen who the wall text tells me is the artist, walking through some epic western landscape, glacial streams and aspen forests and snow-dusted peaks and crystalline skies, and this Adonis creature, stalking around in tight camo shorts and lace-up boots and nothing on top— he’s magnificent, he looks like he’s been chiseled from the limestone of the mountains, rough-hewn, sinewy, all that good stuff. I’m so entranced that for a few seconds I don’t even realize he’s carrying a gun. A real gun gun, you know, one of those classy hunting ones you see in period dramas. Then suddenly he’s crouched down, with the gun pointed toward the trees, contoured definition in his calves, the camera’s loving his calves, and he shoots, and the sound rattles the whole room, and there’s a close-up of a deer falling to the ground, and then he shoots again, and there’s a close-up of an elk stumbling down a hillside, and then a bison, and then a black bear, and then a cougar—a cougar! Who knew you could hunt cougars. It’s so profane and cruel and spectacular, all of it, the beautiful man, the beautiful creatures, the beautiful landscape, and I’m seized by some inexplicable erotic energy, some Sontag shit, a flesh-level understanding of violence, and power, and the artist’s participation in all of it, the artist’s complicity, and I hear the voice in my head say: to represent it, one must live it, live the action, do the damage, fire the shot. I’m just standing there, eyes closed, marinating, meditating, machinating—remember, boundary-pushing, genre-bending, urgent and necessary, timely and timeless, batshit, magpies, et cetera—and then it hits me. The idea.
So I say to Lacey, we’re done, we’ve gotta go, we’ve gotta go now, I have to do it all now, otherwise I won’t do it, and of course she isn’t really paying attention, she’d checked out a while back, was studiously combing through her last six years of pics in search of the one effortless sexy selfie that would lure ’em in, change her life, and so she doesn’t protest when I say I need to borrow her car to pop across the border for a quick errand.
You won’t be surprised to hear how easy it was for me to buy it. I went to the closest shop I could find—Orwell’s Trading Post was the one, don’t tell me that doesn’t tickle you, officer—tested out a few bad boys, filled out a form, fluttered my eyelashes at the proprietor, tapped my credit card, and went on my way. I even told him it was for an art project. He wished me good luck and suggested I treat myself to a bigger one when I graduated. Of course I didn’t tell Lacey, or rather I told her I was buying bait and tackle, making something about catfishing, so don’t implicate her, she had no idea, she was just my passenger. Oh and then we’re back in the car, and it’s golden hour, windows down, and we’re listening to Oldies 103.3, and “Sugar Magnolia” comes on, and I have this strange, thrilling feeling of belonging here, really being here, really knowing, for the first time, what I’m doing here, on this highway, on this land, on this slice of time. I’m an artist, I really feel like an artist, I’m channeling the divine, I’m metabolizing the nutrients, I’m on a high, I’m on a roll, I’m seeing it all come together, and I’m googling incel manifestos, wink, or rather, I’m telling Lacey to google incel manifestos, because I’m driving, so I have her copy some choice lines into my notebook, whatever sounds juicy, whatever sounds bold, but can you please switch every instance of girl for boy, every she for he, every red pill for pink, every Becky for Bob, every Stacy for Shane, and she’s complying, because she knows how important my degree show is, and she knows that if she helps me, she’s in credit, I’ll wing for her at the club, I’ll do one of her sound baths, whatever.
I drive right back to campus and hand off the car outside the Science and Engineering Building, tell Lacey I’ll see her at home later, because of course, that was the plan, it was just supposed to be a quick trip, a sussing out, an in-and-out-and-done, then back to the studio to do the real work. The guy at the front desk gives me a look, like I’m an intruder, like he’s never seen a female in the building before, and so I flash my ID, tell him I’m collaborating with one of the CS guys for an art installation, and he nods reassuringly, wishes me good luck, pings open the gates. And that’s it, I’m through, I’m in nerdland, I’m in the manosphere, it’s Saturday night and mercifully empty and I’m running up the stairs, running through the hallways, checking for unlocked doors, looking for something, I’m still not sure what, but I know I’ll know it when I see it. And eventually I do.
Down the length of the hall, there it is, a shrine, a cavalcade, a gallery of glossy photographs of every student in the department, like a fun-size yearbook, the Energy, Fluids, and Turbomachinery department, every type of manchild you can imagine—black, white, brown, yellow, sunburned, pasty, pockmarked, pudgy, skeletal, spectacled, bearish, balding, blessed—you name it, they’re all there, like a terrible Benetton ad, taste the rainbow, shield your eyes. And I think, this is perfect, it’s a bit of vandalism, yes, a bit of theft, but these are just shitty printouts, they can easily be replaced, and so I’m peeling them off the walls, one by one. But then I land on the face of one of the guys, so pleased with his high cheekbones and wispy hair, the sort of dweeb who’s on the cusp of hot, who dressed up in the right clothes could fit in at an opening, brooding in the corner, the type I tend to go for, a bit gaunt, a bit less than perfect, definitely a bill-splitter, definitely a disappointment, and suddenly I get that blood-boiling, lid-flipping feeling again, and I think, you know what, I should just do it here, it’ll be more impactful if I do it now, don’t forget what you told yourself—the artist has to live it, live the action, do the damage.
And so I pull it out from my bag. Load it up like how he showed me in the store. Idiot-proof. Look at it awhile. Feel it in my hand. It’s light, kind of plasticky. Looks faker than a fake. No one’s around. I’m cool as a kumquat. I’m ready to go. I’m imagining it all: the degree show, the blue silk dress I’m wearing, the crowds of shocked viewers—was it her who really made that, did this really come out of that little body—the flurry on socials, the swooning gallerists, the champagne lunches, the solo exhibitions, the reviews, the interviews, the auctions, the sales, the sales, the sales, the cottage upstate, a studio for me, a studio for my life partner, wisteria on the facade, house martins under the eaves, daffodils and rhododendrons and endless heads of fresh lettuce, the commissions, the teaching jobs, the museum acquisitions, the French cookware, the roaring fireplaces, the claw-foot tubs, the bay windows, the apple trees, the babies, the children, the grandchildren, the retrospectives, the honorary degrees, the rosemary, the mint, the sage, the basil, massive bushes of basil, never buying basil again. Shoot.
Smack on the mugshot of young wispy. Shoot. A hole right through pimply glasses kid—a yearbook classic. Shoot. Baby fat boy, coffee teeth. Shoot. A mustachioed fellow, crewcut and no neck, bad crop. Shoot. Redeye flash red-head. And here’s where I go wrong.
The bullet ricochets, hits the mirror on the opposite wall. It shatters in this clean, cinematic way. For a moment, the surface is perfectly veined, and my insides are quiet and slow and free of thoughts, and I feel so completely at peace, so separate from the world of things, just floating in pure, timeless space. And then the shards begin to fall. They’re shimmering, they’re like diamonds, and I’m thinking, oh I need this, this is good, a pile of shot mirror would make a great post, and so I get down on the floor and start picking up the pieces, but I’m rushing, I’m starting to panic, maybe it’s the blood on my hands that does it, I keep cutting myself on the bits of mirror, because I’m moving too fast, gathering up the bloody warheads and shoving them into my LRB tote, yes, the one that went viral in Seoul, but I can’t seem to do it without slicing myself, I’m watching my fingers bleed. It’s at this point that I exit zen zone entirely, and I’m back in the room, freshly aware of what I’m doing, which is shooting grad students in a campus hallway, with my plagiarized femcel manifesto in my pocket, and so I think, I need to grab this shit and go.
I start pulling the faces off the wall, as many as I can—I figure I’d shoot the rest later, in the studio—but my hands are still bleeding, and so I drop the dudes and press my hands into my jeans, but then my jeans are covered in blood, so I press my hands into the carpet, and the carpet just drinks up the blood, something about the material—it spreads really quickly through it, it looks like a Rorschach test—and I think, I can use this, I can put it in the show, and so I grab a shard and start gouging at the carpet, trying to cut out the beautiful blot, but it keeps growing, blossoming, pushing beyond the frame. By now I’m feeling really warm and my vision is kind of going, the hallway is flickering dark and light, dark and light, and then the door at the end swings open, and it’s the security guard. I look up at him and say hello, and he screams. It’s a funny girly little scream, more like a yelp, really. I laugh. But then the hall is a purple cave, and it’s swallowing me, and everything is hot and spinning, and I think I ask the guard if he can help me up, and then that’s it, I’m gone, I disappear, and that’s all I can remember, really. So yeah, and just checking, officer, you’re recording this, right, and I can have a copy, right, because I want it, I need it, it’s perfect.