IN THE FUTURE

JENNIFER LACEY In the future we will all wear prada. In the future we will be much more prepared. In the future we will never engage in harmful behaviour. In the future we will still loose our keys but we will experience it differently, as an opportunity to deviate from habit. In the future institutions that produce art will fall spontaneously into a deep and restful slumber for short periods, like a bear hibernating. During these periods culture will change without the change being observed and monitored. This will allow the new to sneak in like a vapour as indeed it must. We know how it snobs all solicitations. In the future the artist author dancer singer thinker will be relieved of the burden of imposed genius/paternal status and will enjoy moments of failure without crisis. In the future those who observe a performative living event will crave delight and destabilization over affirmation and consolation. In the future the reason for performance will be an occasion not an argument. In the future we will be unsurprised by a return to symbolism in all forms of art. In the future we will still sometimes drink too much and go to sleep without brushing our teeth. In the future there will still be satisfaction in frivolous shoes. In the future the smokers on the street will be replaced by the sugar-eaters who will later be replaced by the people who have nothing nice to say. In the future there will be much less dust, this problem will be resolved. In the future we will surely take the train more often than we fly. In the future we will surely not travel so much for a while and then we will all start up again. In the future we will look back with nostalgia on the travel delays and the time lost in airports. There will be an important body of literature and cinema, romantic in tone, devoted to this lost time of reverie. In the future the term dilettante will no longer be pejorative. In the future hem lines will continue to go up and down and up again with the dow jones index but western men will never wear dresses on non-ironic terms. They will however continue to regret the ever stymied breeze between their tighs on hot summer days and ponder if the ability to pee standing up is really a fair exchange.

In the future dance will remain a minor form but it is precisely that that enables certain practitioners to infiltrate corporate world government and implement homeopathic terrorist methods. You know who you are. In the future we will realize that we have travelled on a flight with both a knife and a bottle of shampoo in our hand luggage. We will not be sure whether to feel safe or unsafe. In the future we will have learned how to consider the future without the peculiar flavour of fantasy and contrition that marks out present divining abilities. In the future we will all find ourselves together again but the circumstances will be very different indeed. In the future, because of an irresponsible translator, this event will be known as wordstock and will be understood as an alchemical attempt to produce soup for 100 out of a back issue of October. In the future the vagina will lose its quality as an absolute and will promise neither moral aptitude nor emotional weakness. One of the many repercussions of this change will be that possessors of vaginas will be free to campaign for political office without wearing a white pant suit. In the future young men will continue to grow big bushy beards until they one day stop it and start shaving again. In the future those of us who are dead will remain dead and will perhaps be even deader. In the future our curiosity will be assuaged and our anxiety revealed as a surfeit of excitement. In the future the fourth wall will come lumbering back home. Because of its ernest demeanor and honest intentions the prodigal son will enjoy a brief and thoroughly sincere welcome before being rebanished. In the future elective cosmetic surgery will experience a sort of cultural zenith and the practice will discontinue. Those citizens who regret their youth and their aging bodies will resort to less permanent and invasive solaces such as dinners of plump roast chicken thighs, Vaseline on mirrors and the ironing of bed sheets and underwear. In the future we will create stories about the love we had for another - making it bigger or smaller or using it as plot device to anchor the rest of our story. In the future we will cease all such behaviour developed and enlightened we will cause no more suffering. In the future we will all get enough sleep. In the future young men will continue the confusing trend of bushy beard growing until they one day stop it and start shaving again. In the future Tap dance and spoken word will be drawn into slavery by discursive academic art. The ensuing, bloody rebellion will destroy all cultural factions as we know them. In the future we will be able to define freedom otherwise than as an absence of slavery.

In the future freewill will be fully realized as a practice by all sentient beings, compassionate actions overwhelm the populace producing a brief but violent counter-reaction. After the dust settles genocide, genital mutilation, enforced child labor, famine and copy-right laws have all evaporated. In the ensuing calm extreme sports become popular and the highest death rate comes from skiing and spelunking accidents. In the future we will still be obliged to leave our houses for sex and companionship. Cybersex and emobots, so promising at the beginning of the century prove a failure outside of some fetishist circles. As it turns out conflict free sex and love is boring in a crushing sort of way that only underlines our basic solitary condition. Priapic negotiation classes become popular as a remedy to atrophied social skills and are covered under the universal healthcare in the rehabilitation sector. In the future poverty and obscene wealth will be experienced on a time share basis. Accepting that both the venal and the abject are possible and desirable human experiences, every citizen will serve both their time of crushing poverty and richy richness somewhere between the ages of 20 and 50. The rest of the time everyone will just have what they need within a humane margin that still accounts for the need of some to achieve success financially in order to be happy. In the future performance forms will be primarily necessary for the production of euphoria and boredom in their purest forms. In the future will go further underground before becoming mainstream before freaking out and burrowing back under again. In the future we will realize that true boredom is not the panicky vacuum left by an excess of entertainment. True boredom is revealed as a mystery and an opportunity. In the future practice based performance forms combined with the death throes of appropriation, the dark subterranean influence of invincible postmodernism and lack of funding creates a pan European season of dance that reanimates actions of the weather men, bader meinhoff, the red army faction with the inevitable ensuing mayhem. After the return of the bankers to their homes and the morning of the martyrs, dance remains a minor, suspiciously feminine form. In the future we will stop complaining. In the future the expertise of dance and performance artists enjoys a brief moment of marketability. A few of us become very rich and the rest of us are jealous. In the future the practice movement in the performing arts expands naturally to include the public, participation and passivity are considered as salt and sweet and the live attended event allows for both and also flavour mixing. Performance modes naturally change to include at least one simple repetitive element, an entry way for people join in, something easily understood and practiced which however bears fruit beyond simple achievement. Compositional skills make way for evocation methods and it within this sort of cleverness that meaning returns, licking its wounds and begging for forgiveness. We are touched and say OK but no tyrannical absolutism this time. The practice movement vogue lasts much longer than expected and even survives several unpleasant violent events of participation of the hostile sort. In the future some of us will die and then the rest of us will. In the future we will still be unprepared for change.

In the future it is certain this body we have will not be present. In the future we will look back on our present haircut as an enormous folly. In the future some of us will stumble upon a second career. In the future we will be sad and it will seem endless but wont be. In the future we will be happy and as usual it will masquerade as a permanent condition.

Ladies and Gentlemen, while you are with us here tonight, wed like to ask you to try to forget about the outside world completely. Try not to think about anything outside of this room. Anything at all. Try to forget about cars, and meetings and cigarettes and road accidents. Try to forget about births and deaths and funerals. And sudden bereavements. Try not to think about dustbins, and litter on the street. Try not to think about litter. Try not to think about troubles and agonies and weak smiles. And sadness. And try not to think about the kind of bitterness that comes from making one really big mistake. And the kind of regret that comes from making many many many small mistakes. Try not to think about clumisiness and ineptitude. Forget about the wind rushing through trees and fire engines rushing to an accident. Try to forget about rivers flooding and cars - cars on a motorway piling into one another. Try to forget about footsteps walking on pavements and broken heels. And poison and rusty knives And guns. Try not to think about guns. And daggers and letter bombs and cluster bombs. And chemical warfare. Try not to think about chemical warfare. And chemotherapy. And the common cold. Try not to think about the common cold. And hospitals. And nurses. And surgeons and rubber gloves and trollies and serums and cupboards. And expensive drugs that poor countries cant afford. Try not to think about bio-technology, abortions and genetic abnormalities and genetic modificiation. Try not to think about sperm. Sperm that doesnt swim in the right direction. Try not to think about ovarian disfunction and foetal matter with no heart. Try not to think about recurring daydreams and residues you cant identify and the kind of fluff you find at the bottom of our handbag. Try not to think about phlegm. The kind of phlegm that sticks in the back of your throat. And handkerchiefs with blood on them. And toilet seats with blood on them. And shit on the sheets. Try to forget about shit on the sheets. I dont want you to think about shit on the sheets. Forget about sweat. The smell of other peoples sweat. Try to forget what fear smells like. The sound of people coughing and the sound of people walking down the stairs. Try to forget about nursery rhymes and bedtime and nightmares you cant wake up from or nightmares which come back again and again and children crying in their sleep and people crying out in pain. Try to forget about TV and news headlines. And states of emergency. And diplomatic breakdown. And economic crisis. And climate change. Try to forget about the electric chair and electric shock treatment. Try to forget about stimulants and depression. Depression and depressants and de-industrialisation and people with deep-rooted psychological problems. Try to forget about the things people say to hurt one another, and the things that people dont say when they need to say them but then its too late. Try to forger about people that speak out but then wish they hadnt. Try not to think about people

stuck on boats in the middle of the ocean. People stuck underneath trains. Or people stuck in the back of refrigerated lorries. Or people stuck in a lift. Try not to think about failure. Try not to think about hatred or religious war. Try not to think about surveilance and religious war and nail bombs. Try not to think about trains crashing into other trains. Sickness and ulcerated skin. Or about unhappy children at Christmas. And brittle bones and pneumonia. And gas fires. Gas heaters and gas ovens and tear gas. And nautrual energy resources that are running out. Try not to think about insects and fleas and mutation and viruses that run out of control. And bacteria. Flesh-eating bacteria. Try not to think about the dirt that collects in between your toes and ear wax. And snot. And blood and guts and come. And piss. Try not to think about leaky bladders and when you last emptied your bowels. Try not to think about coughs and coughing people and sharing space with strangers and sharing the bed with people you hardly know or the dull hum of electricity and darkness and silence and the kind of awkward pauses that sometimes happen on the telephone. Try not to think about family feuds or big plans that come to nothing or unexpected bancruptcy or people yelling something in the night as they pass you in the street but you cant understand what theyre saying. Try not to think about traffic cops and priests and politicians and bruises and gashes and cuts that dont heal. Try not to think about compromise and uneasy equilibrium and plates, cups and saucers which have been balanced in a way that makes them likely to fall. Try not to think about people waiting in line for food, or waiting in line at an ATM or people watching but not gettting involved during an nasty domestic incident. Try not to think about opression, opressive parking regulations and opressive heat and nasty surprises. Try not to think about the big bang and how the world began. How the world might end. And dinosaurs and history and mythology and chronology and ideology and biology and geology and french and maths and PE and RE. Try not to think about sex and kisses. And anal rape. And lobotomies and blow jobs. And piercings. And unwanted medical interventions or the kind of doctors that collaborate with interrogators. Try not to think about really boring car journeys and really boring train journeys. Try not to think about loneliness and emptiness and vacuums and voids. And the year zero. Try not to think about the workings of your body. While youre with us here tonight wed like to ask you to try not to think about the workings of your own body. Your heart pumping blood, your lungs breathing oxygen. Twitches, shudders, shrugs, nervous mannerisms. Discomfort. Try not to think about discomfort. Deceit, deception and despair. And desperation. And mistakes. And mishaps, misdemeanours and miscellaneous errors. Try not to think about your pulse. And time. And space and seconds passing and minutes passing. Try not to think about sleeping or dreaming or bad memories or the process of forgetting. And bad dreams that haunt you for the rest of the day. Try not to think about holes in the road. Try not to think about dust and ash and smoke. And fire. Dont think about fire. Dont think about fire and sand and ash. Please dont think about fear and trembling. Try not to think about shopping and misplaced lottery tickets. And broken dreams and broken bones and broken homes and broken marriages. Try not to think about the inevitable process of aging. Skin and bones and muscles wasting. Try not to think about regrets and goodbyes and airports and people who cant look you in the face. And overheard remarks and suspicion and things people say about you which you should never really hear. Try not to think about shaking and hesitations and doubts and coughing and needing to clear your throat. Try not to think about mobile phone bills and badly managed prisons and badly managed pension funds and rust and world leaders and world aid and pain and disasters and disaster movies and disastrous relationships and disastrous haircuts and curtains and feet stamping angrily and cinders and ceilings and

shipwrecks and things that lie at the bottom of the ocean. While youre with us here tonight wed like you to forget about everything that makes you who you are. Your passports, your identity cards, your date of birth, your face, your experiences, everything you did today and everything you said. And everything you saw. Whilst youre with us here tonight wed like to ask you to forget about everything your friends and family did or saw or heard or thought today. Forget about everything youve ever read. And everything thats ever been written. And everything thats ever been invented or made. Forget about everything thats ever been conceived of and everything thats ever come into existence. And everything that might come into existence in the future. And everything that might have come into existence but didnt. Whilst youre with us here tonight wed like you to forget about everything Whilst youre with us here tonight wed like you to forget about everything outside this room.