L’Appartement

Niederländische Briefmarke

… //

She said: It looks. Don’t you think it looks a lot like rain?
He said: Isn’t it. Isn’t it just. Isn’t it just like a woman?

She said: It’s hard. It’s just hard. It’s just kind of hard to say.
He said: Isn’t it. Isn’t it just. Isn’t it just like a woman?

She said: It goes. That’s the way it goes. It goes that way.
He said: Isn’t it. Isn’t it just like a woman?

She said: It takes. It takes one. It takes on to. It takes one to know one.
He said: Isn’t it just like a woman?

She said: She said it. She said it to no. She said it to no one.
Isn’t it. Isn’t it just? Isn’t it just like a woman?

Your eyes. It’s a day’s work to look in to them.
Your eyes. It’s a day’s work just to look in to them.

… // …

And all this people are heading for the same room. The final space. A big room, one of many; a room separate from the exhibition yet called an Exhibition Room; a corporate place, a clean slate; white/chrome/pure/plain (this was the design brief) used for the meetings of people who want to meet somewhere neutral at the end of the twentieth century; a virtual place where their business (be that rebranding, lingerie or rebranding lingerie) can be done in an emptiness, an uncontaminated cavity; the logical endpoint of a thousand years of spaces too crowded and bloody. This one is parted down, sterilized, made new every day by a Nigerian cleaning lady with an industrial Hoover and guarded through the night by Mr De Winter, a Polish nightwatchman (that’s what he calls himself – his job title is Asset Security Coordinator); he can be seen protecting the space, walking the borders of the space with a Walkman playing Polish folk-tunes; you can see him, you can see it through a huge glass front if you walk by – the acres of protected vacuity and a sign with the prices per square foot of these square feet of space of space of space longer than it is wide and tall enough to fit head-to-toe three Archies and at least half an Alsana and tonight there are (there will not be tomorrow) two huge, matching posters, slick across two sides of the room like wallpaper and the text says MILLENIAL SCIENCE COMMISSION in a widevariety of fonts ranging from the deliberate archaism of Viking to the modernity of Impact in order to get a feel of a thousand years in lettering (this was the brief), and all of it in the alternate colours grey, light blue and dark green because these are the colours research reveals people associate with „science and technology“ (purples and reds denote the arts, royal blue signifies „quality and/or approved merchandise“), because fortunately after years of corporate synaesthesia (salt & vinegarblue, cheese & oniongreen) people can finally give the answers required when a space is being designed, or when something is being rebranded, a room/a furniture/Britain (that was the brief: a new British room, a space for Britain, Britishness, space of Britain, British industrial space cultural space space); they know what is meant when asked how matt chrome makes them feel; and they know what is meant by national identity? symbols? paintings? maps? music? air-conditioning? smiling black children or smiling Chinese children or [tick the box]? world music? shag or pile? tile or floorboards? plants? running water? they know what they want, especially those who’ve lived this century, forced from one space to another like Mr De Winter (né Wojciech), renamed, rebranded, the answer to every questionaire nothing nothing space please just space nothing please nothing please