20. I never told you this, but..

I saw an exhibition once when I was about 15 or 16 and doing GSCE Art.. at the Lisson Gallery in Edgware Road. It’s the only time I’ve ever been there, or even to that tube station. I went with Lizzie, but we didn’t talk about it after much. I wish I could remember the names of the artists or of the exhibition. But regardless it was mostly installation, and the gallery wasn’t very big. It was a lot of text on white walls. One piece in particular went like this:

“At this exact moment a man is buying a whole cooked chicken from his local grocery shop. At the same time, a child is falling over and scraping their knee.” It went on, but I can’t recall the rest.
The exhibition guide said that the artist was encouraging us to believe what she is saying, but we have no way to prove or disprove it. We can only be in one place at one time. We are here reading this on this wall in this gallery, but a million other moments are happening everywhere else. Someone out there that second may have been thinking ‘right now a girl in west London is in a gallery reading events on a wall’ and I have no way to prove or disprove that.

The other thing I remember in that exhibition, and I don’t know whether it was another exhibit or just where my train of thought led me, but I distinctly remember starting to conceive that everyone around me is an actor. Ah, I remember now, it was indeed an art piece. Anyhow, it told me that everyone is an actor. Every wall is a set, every conversation a script, every event a plot and every encounter intentional. It was a creepy feeling; creepy, intriguing, comforting, eerie, paranoid, relieving – so many feelings all at once. If everything is planned, I have no control. But if everything is meant to be, then I don’t need to worry about fucking it up. But if nothing can be done, then I am trapped. But if it’s all part of a greater story, then how will it end? But if people I think love me for me are just acting, then what is real? If I am the only character who isn’t in on the plan, then am I totally alone? Is this piece of art like someone leaving their diary open and me seeing it by mistake? Have I rumbled the Biggest Secret Ever? Or is everyone seeing this and everyone now feels like the only real person in a universe of actors and story lines? Is it a trick to isolate everyone and make the nation suspicious of their neighbour?

For years I thought about how if this was true, I convinced myself that once I’m asleep all the scene sets come down, get cleaned, all the actors have dress rehearsals and practice their lines for the chapters of the following day. Then someone told me they made a film called The Truman Show, and I was so annoyed that it seemed like my whole philosophy was someone else’s idea and now a film that people will think I was ‘inspired’ by. So I never talked to anyone about it because I didn’t want anyone to say ‘Oh yeah, you mean like the Truman Show?’

But the gallery experience really got me thinking and I don’t think I’ve stopped thinking about it ever since.