Content

But what does the surface hide? What does the surface enclose? What is the nature of content?

Content has a halo around it. Supposedly the message holds all the keys. But the truth is that there is no message. We know we tried to access it and found nothing.

That there is no message is a public secret. Because so many institutions have been invested deeply in curation, archiving and exhibition of the said content, everyone wants to play this game of make-believe. This game of make-believe has led to this moment of collective delirium. This collective delirium has meant that you have been able to conjure content that has not been there. This collective delirium has meant that you have been able to conjure meaning that is not there.

The message has disappeared for many other reasons. We can't list them all, because we trust that you would have noticed some reasons on your own. But some reasons are necessary to document here for the sake of creating a densely-packed explosive potential that can remain charged for the times to come.

One reason is overproduction. In these times content of variable qualities and intensities has been produced and produced in abundance. When there is an overproduction of content, the message wears thin and not enough seed messages can be accessed to insert into content bodies. Then empty containers are pushed out without any scent or trace of a message. These empty containers look like any other which on being copied get copied empty too. The field is quickly populated by empty containers that possess a surface like any other but do not have any message. Overproduction of content leads to a glut of thin content that is light and eager to be copied and to replicate its lightness. This further leads to the disappearance of the message. The burden of ambiguous, gutless content has been too heavy to bear for our eyes, our minds and our heart. This burden has pulled us down. Our descent and our fall under the burden of this tragedy have made us anxious about the future of the world. This anxiety is seated deep within our heart and it worries us sick.

Another reason is neglect. Of the content which has existed, not much has been really accessed. Most of it lies neglected. Because the flavour of the times we live in is pop, most time has been spent in accessing the least. As a direct response to neglect, content decided to disappear. Rather than feeling bad about being neglected, most content has just chosen to falsify itself. It has chosen to falsify itself by becoming useless to be gained access to. Even if you read the message on the wall, what will you do? You will still be left trying to figure out the significance of the moment because the message will be benign. Like a spurned lover tried as a second option, the message will agree to be wooed only for the chance to slap you in the face. For when you face it, it will be empty. The spurned lover will leave behind a hologram of herself behind and when you address the hologram, it will burst like a balloon.

Another reason is cynicism. With the population of thin surfaces posing as containers of content everywhere, the hungry subject wanders from surface to surface but remains hungry. The subject turns towards cynicism as a defence from dejection. Once cynicism sets in, a negative magnetism is produced in the air. All other fragments of content get put off and evaporate into thinness of the air. Cynicism reduces the instances of engagement. Libraries remain empty, bookshops go out of business, professors lose their jobs and universities go bankrupt. Cynicism offers a good excuse to not suffer the excess of engagement, bodies floating about in the mess choose to stay away; no one even peeks into shattered windows of the edifices of content. Opacity sets in. It becomes a universally-accepted fact that information poverty has set in and the pangs of deprivation ring the atmosphere with a desperate tinge.

Another reason is the prevalence of axe-grinding. When the scarce concentrations of messages too are riddled with personal vendettas, seeking only to settle personal scores, the fire is said to have consumed everything. The opportunity to transmit is very valuable and it comes with the expectation to use it judiciously. If you flippantly waste it by looking only at yourself and the silly complications of your own life and do not connect with the universe, do not choose to stare out of your unique lens, then you truly deserve to live in the tragedy that you live in now. The moments that you spent in grinding your axe have short-changed the world. A world that, at one time, waited for you to produce the message with baited breath, has now given up. Now the world knows that you neither have the intention nor the means of ever delivering the message to them and that you use your facility of writing only to settle with your own angst.

Another reason is the rattling of registers with cause-effect dualities. We are mounting our attack on surfaces brick by brick but you are revealing your own weakness constantly. You weave your defences for keeping the world arranged as it is. You defend all the fronts of our attack and defy us. But we do not take your defence seriously, because your logic is based on establishing connections between things that ought not to bear a connection. Things that happen in two different time-zones are discreet sets of happening, the connection between the happenings is made by the narrative in your head. Continuity is a bankrupt idea when applied to unscripted realities. So when you accuse us of attacking the innocent surfaces of your world, when you pretend to know nothing about the manipulation we are talking about, we laugh in your face. We refuse to read your statement as a defence because we refuse to read a connection between what you say and the core of our criticism of the way your world is arranged. We refuse to back down from our frontal attack on the set of practices that have become the operating principles of your universe. Instead, we just go on stating our case and ignore your reduced cause-effect reading sensibilities.