Rashid Uri and Andrey Bogush at Bid Project

Artists: Rashid Uri and Andrey Bogush

Exhibition title: I’LL BE BACK IN A MOMENT

Curated by: Marialuisa Pastò

Venue: Bid Project, Milan, Italy

Date: March 25 – April 30, 2016

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Bid Project, Milan

I hasten to drink my coffee, searching for that printed shirt I forget where I left it. It’s early but there is light already, I can see it through the empty spaces of the curtain. I don’t know where is the place, let me google it. Damn, so far. I’m texting you, I’m late.

I like the city at this time of the day. It is mantled by a suspended thin mist. The light floats on the buildings and envelops the streets, before the city wakes up completely and dissolves into an anxious numbness. I was so focused on chatting with you that I almost missed the moment! And thinking I don’t really care about my phone makes my hands heavy. Sometimes it is like you’re unable to get out of bed on a freezing morning. You must get up, there are many interesting things to be done in the coming day. But still the warm couch feels too delicious and the cold outside so cruel. This intimate connection with our life-world ends up filling our minds and we get up and start doing them.*

Sometimes you sit back and put your feet up, nothing new on streaming. You walk on the floor looking for a beer in the fridge and try to remember the last story that made you really laugh. So many actually… What did I do yesterday? I can’t remember. I try to save one specific frame from the many stratified filaments of my memory. The rest of them falls away into the background like a shadow on the wall. Like a song that slowly turns into an stifled whisper. The only memories that seem to make sense are the ones that stand out from the habits of the day. They said that memories are only for nostalgic people. Moments, instead, live themselves, frozen in time. There is no story behind a moment.

Daily protocol sequence bends the time to such an extent that we believe it becomes too short, so infinite. But «our attention and productivity are optimal only 5 or 6 hours a day at best. That’s the truth». But rush is comfortable, our protective case: it doesn’t really generate time, but rather a proposal of it, as something that never changes while changing continuously.

A man walks in the street, he sees me and smiles at me, he approaches me for asking me something. He is danish. And seems very pleasant. He confesses that he burns for the desire of tasting a special dessert. His eyes are full, his enthusiasm is fun. And contagious. There is a very good place not far from here. Do you mind to take me there? Why not? I’m starving, actually. He speaks about his very long trip, he has been traveling for three months and his stories are full of funny details. Makes me forget time…

Gosh, I almost forget. Late again. I really don’t care. I’m texting you. Go on, I’ll be back in a moment.

* Pluralism and Personality: William James and Some Contemporary Cultures of Psychology