The Abyss Gazes

In a matter of minutes, Michael was going to die.

He ran, clutching a bag closely to his chest, cutting through the pines panting vigorously. He stumbled on a rock protruding from the ground, looked up and saw her waiting for him at the ship, in a clearing about fifty yards ahead. As a gunshot whizzed past his left shoulder, he glanced behind and saw white figures pursuing him through the snow. The shots were getting closer.

She was shouting his name desperately as he emerged from the trees, as he summoned up all of his energy to run. Now the shots behind him were of little concern, her soul beckoned to him and his body pumped adrenaline, responding to it. His legs were on fire, pumping him on as he saw her blonde hair caught on the breeze while a bullet kicked up the snow ahead of him. In slow motion he watched the flakes falling around him, her arm outstretched, love-filled anguish in her eyes and the glow of sunset all around. At that moment, a bullet tore into his calf, pulling him to the floor like a dog at his heels. His hand fell into the snow, which was cool and glistening, perfect.

Remembering what he was supposed to do, he summoned all of his strength to take the small satchel he was carrying and throw it to her. She wailed in distress as another bullet ripped his spine and took the last of his energy. This is what it had all come down to, the revolution, years of struggle; this is what it was all about. He had performed his task, and now what filled him was a morose sense of achievement; the sadness of what could have been and the beauty with which it was taken away. Life, at the end of it all, was a sum of emotions; his triumphs and hopes and struggles, and the tragic end which had befell Michael was, in his mind, the only way things could have been. He looked up and saw her already turning her back to him as the white figures behind approached. Her white dress fluttered in the breeze.

The shuttle door closed as the ship’s engines blew the snow into a frenzy. He could hear the sound of crisp footsteps around him. They were shooting, but by now the ship was already off the ground, engines whirring to a steady hum as she engaged the throttle. And then it had taken off, a silhouette against the crimson backdrop and the tips of the pines. Michael took in as much as he could of these last moments before another shot rang out, and he was no more.

 

*              *              *

Miranda returned to the Academy with high expectations of her reception. Her project had been in the making for a year, and the final product was something which she was sure would guarantee her a place on the Academy’s scholarship list. She brought her shuttle through a patch of cloud, as the pristine coast of the Azure sparkled brilliantly below, inviting her home.

The Academy was situated about a mile inland, on a small set of mountains overlooking the sea. Its location had been that of a French fort a few centuries early. Now in place of the fort stood a towering structure, a mirrored glass tower surrounded by a complex of smaller buildings. It had been made in the style of the revisionists, an art movement that had attempted to replicate the extravagance of classical and renaissance architecture in modern materials. The result was a tribute to the triumph of mankind. The surrounding gardens were filled with cherubs and Greco-Roman Gods, elaborate gilding adorned the main entrance, not only of gold but of chrome and silver, catching the sun like a jewel. The focal piece of the garden was a striking figure with arms outstretched, a representation of humanity standing on a giant globe of metallic circles. Above it read in glistening metallic letters: ARS EST VITA.

There had been a town here once, along the beach where European tourists had come to enjoy sun and water. Now, the buildings had been removed and the entire few miles of inlet had been transformed into lush gardens with rivers, temples and waterfalls. There was a striking variety of cultural influences here; one part of the grounds formed a Buddhist temple, where people in ascetic clothing maintained the gardens, rung bells and lit candles and incense. Another part had been made in the neo-Classical style of the United States; and here a square marble library had been erected, surrounded by fountains and autumnal trees. Miranda glanced at the students walking around these expansive gardens as she pulled the ship up sharply and landed in a hangar just a short descent from the Academy building.

On the hemline of her dress, Miranda tapped a small button and the white she had previously been bathed in was transformed into a formal black. She adjusted her hair as the ship powered down, then, remembering the satchel that she had been given, she took out from it a small disc. Exiting the shuttle, she stepped out and breathed the warm fresh air of the Mediterranean. She walked out of the hangar and past a sign that read:

The Academy for Art as Experience

Nothing ever becomes real before it is experienced. " John Keats.

The hallways of the Academy were furnished with a strange mixture of antique and modern furniture. Rather than the bright colours and minimalist design which had become standard interior design, there was ornate decoration and synthetic carpets and curtains. Even in the metal frames were small figures and flourishes, gildings and plasterwork which looked like the handiwork of a master. From a set of ambient speakers, Mozart’s Lacrimosa was playing. Miranda confidently walked along the corridor, past several sculptures and oil paintings, and through an open set of monstrous mahogany doors into the main lobby.

“Miranda Paquanoia here, I have an appointment with the Patrician at one?” She fingered the disc in her pocket while waiting for the receptionist to verify her appointment. A group of students walked past. One of them was an Asian boy with smooth skin, who was discussing the charge of the Light Brigade.

“It’s just truly remarkable how Tennyson captured the valiant folly of it all, the vain cry of war against superior numbers.”

“I don’t see what’s so valiant about it; it’s not as though there was even a moderate chance of victory. Take for instance the Russians at Smolensk…”

“Smolensk!? You’re always talking about bloody Napoleonic battles, there’s nothing artistic about an era in which…”

“Miss Paquanoia?” she awoke with a start. “Up the stairs, first right, the left at the end of the corridor.”

The office of the Patrician was regal and homely. A maroon carpet led the eyes into the warm space where a striking pendulum clock, neatly polished, captivated your gaze. The Patrician’s desk was on the right of the room. He was youthful in his face, but with a prominent white moustache-- projecting his years of experience from his lip.

There something took Miranda by surprise, a picture of a topless woman hung without prudence on the wall behind him. She glanced at it again in disbelief while introducing herself to him. It was undoubtedly erotic, a pair of perky breasts with erect n*****s and a seductive smile from the woman who exhibited herself through the frame. The presence of the picture amongst the fineries of the office made Miranda feel uncomfortable in her skin.

“Your father has told me a lot about you Miranda,” said the Patrician. “He works at the Academy of Moral Sciences, does he not?” She nodded.

“And yet you chose to apply for the Arts, Miss Paquanoia, why is that?” She felt his eyes moving over her, searching her for vulnerabilities.

“My father and his colleagues spend their lives poring over books searching for laws that don’t exist.” she replied, “I wanted to pursue something more beautiful.”

“Indeed, why we are all here,” he started, clasping his hands together. “To pursue beauty. But she is an elusive mistress, is she not? Tell me, Miss Paquanoia, do you believe in an objective standard of beauty?"

This was the question she had been waiting for. "I do,  your Excellency," she said, "The ancient aestheticians  taught us that art was subjective because they knew far too little about the world, and about people, to begin to measure the intricacies of a brushstroke, or the harmony of a chord on the human soul. Today, we are far closer to achieving a replicable, objective standard of beauty."

The Patrician smiled with a hint of contempt; sign that he had heard similar rehearsed statements before, but that he admired the sincerity with which it was done.

"And what do you think of that picture behind me, Miranda?" his eyes focused on her reaction. A trick question perhaps? Either way, she had better stick with the honest answer.

She replied, "Honestly, I do not think it has artistic value. I have heard of schools of thought that say that anything may be considered art, but the vulgarity, the lack of attention to detail...It seems like nothing more than a piece of pornography from where I'm stood."

The man's eyebrows wrinkled and he gave a warm laugh.

"You are absolutely correct, Miss Paquanoia, it's a worthless picture. But from where I am stood, the look on your face when you stepped into my office gives that picture a certain artistic merit. This is the Academy for Art as Experience, and you will soon discover here that our study of art is extremely comprehensive. Often the audience will be as important, or more important, than the subject. Sometimes, the subject may be the medium of artistic expression."

She interrupted him. "I am sure you will find my entry project very pleasing in that case."

"Of course. The presentation will be on Thursday, where the winners of the scholarships will be announced." There was no hint in his eyes as to whether he favoured her application or not. "You might want to choose a different colour of dress..." he added.

"Thank you, your Excellency."

Miranda cursed that she had forgotten to match dark hair to the dress. She bowed and glanced one more time at the alluring naked woman before exiting the room. Of course he wasn't asking about the picture itself! She felt embarrassed to have fallen for such a cheap trick. She paced anxiously down the corridor, tapping her hairband lightly. Her hair colour digitised itself into a cobalt black as she quickly walked past the reception hall.

 

*           *          *

Once every two years the Academy prospected new students. The entrants were the elite chosen from a number of art schools globally, and had already been through a grueling course of art, music or literature through their teenage years.  This was their final test - the lucky winners of an AAE Scholarship would for the next 8 years pursue research in their chosen fields. All their expenses would be paid, they would have access to large grants, they could travel anywhere on Earth and -- most importantly, each would be granted a research license, a kind of diplomatic immunity bypassing many kinds of legislation in the pursuit of artistic experience.

In the main lecture hall of the Academy, the finalists were gathered to submit their final projects. Out of the 10,000 or so applicants each year, only around 300 had filtered down to this point. There were many ethnic denominations scattered around the hall, sipping wine and discussing various topics, trying to conceal their anticipation of the evening's events. A piece by Bach, Partita No. 3 in E, floated and mingled with the guests and wine, the smell of freshly baked appetizers and humdrum of conversation.

Among the more well known of the guests at the event was Stefan Milinovic from the Operatic School of Moscow, who was discussing his recent attempt to write an opera of the Second World War.

"So the third movement, the crescendo of the piece," he was explaining, "captures the frenzy and the flames of Operation Barbarossa. The baritones will carry the battles, while beautiful Angeline, our mezzo-soprano from Argentina, will portray the distraught Motherland."

"And Master Milinovic, is it true that your opera will feature live gunfire?", a woman to his side asked, who had come from one of the classical operatic backgrounds in Andorra.

"Authenticity is absolutely the key to the integrity of my work." he replied. "We have a number of historical ordinances which will add to the opera, not just as a static piece of art to watch from afar, but as an integrated experience. Lest our audiences sit like vegetables before our serenade!" he chuckled, "No, let them cower in fear instead!"

As he was basking in admiration from his school colleagues who had not made the Academy's final listing, Stefan noticed a woman descend the stairs dressed entirely in black. She caught his eye, and took a glass of wine which was offered to her, before attempting to slink by him unnoticed,  apparently uninteresting in mingling. He stepped forward, to a point which was uncomfortable for both of them, before extending his hand.

"I do not believe we've met?" he asked, puzzling himself at her.

"Millivich? Milinovich, I know you." she replied, sipping cautiously. "The opera writer."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss...?"

"Paquanoia. Miranda."

"One of the other finalists, I see. And from which background do you arrive?" he asked.

Miranda felt uncomfortable, not at the astute Mr Milinovich who now stood in her way to the seated area, but of the gaggling group of students who fawned over him, watching them both eagerly for some sign of his smug superiority. "Methodology." she replied as casually as she could muster.

Stefan raised his eyebrows uncontrollably. This was unexpected for him, but he tried to keep his cool and make light of this new fact. "So we are in the presence of an aestheticist? I will look forward to seeing your project, in that case."

"As to yours," she replied, and feeling her position in the conversation slipping, added sardonically, "although I daresay if you wanted to truly integrate your audience into the Second World War you might do better by herding them into ovens."

"Spoken like a true Academic!" he exclaimed, and she finally made her way past him and his entourage to a quiet part of the hall.

The room was set up with ample seating for the various applicants and guests that had arrived. At the front of the lecture hall was a large screen, designed so that each person in the room received it's image as though it were pointed directly at them, an Inviewer as they were known, and a curtained private area for the Patrician, the Dean and various Academy staff to sit in. After a few minutes, the Dean came out from behind the curtain and gestured for everyone to make their way to their seats. The lights were dimmed and from this screen now came a title screen:

AAE 27th Scholarship Induction Ceremony

Presented by Dean Helgen Platt

The Dean cleared his throat. "Good evening to all of you." he began. "For tens of thousands of years the human species has experienced war, famine and poverty, the things which have shaped and defined us as organisms. We experienced, through these mediums, an array of emotions; joy, hope, tragedy and loss, love and hatred. Emotions which served a practical use, but which we continually sought to trigger and relish as part of the human experience.

It has been the vocation of man to document or analyse these emotional responses that we possess, and the expression of works that evoke them we have come to know as Art. Paintings, sculptures, symphonies: all are expressive arts which serve the purpose of emulating the experiences of life. Art has allowed us to empathise with the artist, or with strangers, to feel the losses of others and to share their victories. In short - Art is the act of experiencing life within the safe confines of a frame, or in the hour of a theatrical performance.

At the end of the postmodernist era we saw a fundamental change in our attitudes and perspectives towards life, and subsequently towards art. Having conquered war and starvation, we began to take another look at what our purpose was, if it were not simply to survive. Art has answered that question in times gone by; Michaelangelo and Leaonardo da Vinci were figures who were not put under the stresses of daily survival, and thus turned to the brush to evoke in them the emotions that life was devoid of in their instances.

Today, thanks to the work of our founder and philosopher Krellin Padson we have come a step closer to refining that work. Padson wrote that the purpose of art was to experience, and therefore the mediums which we had used to experience life "through a glass, darkly" were meager in comparison to the artwork of life itself. He recognised that the change in mankind's nature -- from existence to the transcendence of strife, allowed us to pursue not only life's emotions, but the emotions and experiences that had previously been hindered by the menialities of daily struggle. We now pursue the highest artforms, not only the experience of what it means to be human, but the Universal experience of consciousness; as beings in the void.

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that "when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." Are we not all host to the atoms of the Big Bang, to the cosmic dust that forms nebulae and the stars? All of the worlds and thoughts that we have been privy to in our human artforms are sacred echoes from the Infinite, whether it is the Heaven and Hells of Milton and Dante, the trolls, giants and demons of ancient myth, or our beliefs in rationality and technology in recent times. As Artists we now aim not to just replicate those experiences. We aim to live them.

We do not produce similes here, at the Academy for Art as Experience we pursue the purest form of art possible, the art of life itself. We are not therefore, the traditional artists pictured hunched over scrolls, or armed with chisels. We live in a dimension of artistry to which some members of society remain oblivious.

The several hundred of you here today come from different parts of the world and different artistic backgrounds, but you are united in the pursuit of something greater than mere mimicry. If you are prepared to explore, to live out your artwork, then our doors will be open to you. But there is always a risk, when immersing yourself into such a lifestyle, that the results will not be as you intended. Van Gogh drove himself insane and shot himself in a field, Virginia Woolfe threw herself into the Ouse. If you look into the abyss, inevitably the abyss looks back into you.

Unfortunately, not all of you can join our Academy, and tonight is your opportunity to show our leading teachers why you deserve the right to pursue your artistic career here. No doubt you already know about our elite teaching staff and our generous grants. But the main thing that a AAE Scholarship offers you is to live a life of artistic experience. You will study advanced methodology and phenomenology of art, past present and future. Your lifestyle will become intricately planned and scrutinized to help you to ascend beyond everyday worries and unpure experiences. Each day at the Academy will be like reading War and Peace, or watching Don Giovanni for the first time.

The opportunity is there for you all, and now I give to each of you the stage. Seize it!"

There was a moment of silence, then thunderous applause. The guests who had previously been transfixed and a little confused by the Dean's speech roared into life, while the applicants were already on their feet. Some of them had genuine pride in their eyes, others anticipation. Miranda's face was cold and unchanged. Stefan glanced across at her, and she flicked her hair back without noticing him. How could she be this unmoved by the speech he had just heard?

The first presentations began, and both Miranda and Stefan watched them sternly. The first was unimpressive; a sculptor from Japan who had created some very lifelike morphing statues that matched the emotions of the audience around them. The work he had produced was by any standards quite grandiose -- if a person was angry his figures would adopt poses of battle; if reflective they would morph into angelic or romantic figures, and the effect was that no passer-by could help but become entranced by them. For the Academy's standards though, it was hardly groundbreaking and the 15-minute presentation received a mild reception. The second was over as quickly, and before he knew it Stefan was being called to the stage to announce the opening of his opera Evropevsky to the most elite names in the world of Arts.

He started nervously, but after a few minutes let himself be drawn into the experience of presenting his piece, the preparation and planning, the meticulous writing and hiring of actors and how he felt he could deliver a operatic experience to audience members from around the world. He related how the opera involved aircraft flying directly over the theater as controlled explosions would rock the foundations and make the audience fear for their lives; how machine guns would be fired into the plasterwork as the finale swelled up and the combined voices of Europe, Russia and America would announce the dawning of a new era. Instead of engaging with the audience as he should have done, he felt his eyes gravitated towards Miranda. He looked at her and she looked back unflinchingly. He found her mesmerizing.

The audience applauded him, and she did too, although more conservatively than the others that he observed. He glanced over at the Academic staff and they too seemed pleased by his intention and commitment. As to his prospects at the Academy, only time could tell.

"I have had the pleasure of witnessing a rehearsal of Evropevsky and I much look forward to seeing the final result," the Patrician bowed and he left the stage. "Our next applicant is one who I am sure you will all find captivating in her approach to methodology. I present to you Miss Miranda Paquanoia of Manila."

Miranda walked up onto the stage. She coolly placed the diskette that she had been in possession  of into a small device, and the static light of the Inviewer dimmed.

"My project is entitled Sacrifice." she started and anxiously looked down at the floor. "The aim of the piece was to highlight the emotional and aesthetic value of man as a sacrificial being.

The subject of this piece was a member of the Californian terrorist organization CPR, Michael Blake. Last year, I met the subject and convinced him that I was the daughter of a senior official of the United States, and that I had potential access to a number of files that would aid the Californian Paramilitary Resistance to push for independence. I met with him regularly, gaining his confidence and trust and allowing him to develop a personal, romantic interest for me. The purpose of extending this for a year was to enhance the authenticity of the final project.

You will see behind me on the screen now transcripts of our conversations, where he confesses his love for myself and his comrades; juxtaposing objects of personal sacrifice. I aimed to use both of these in the production of an experience of sacrificial love.

What you are about to see," she pressed a button to advance the presentation, "are Michael's final moments."

 

*          *          *

 

She was sitting in front of the mirror, looking at herself and trying to discern what was there. Was it a daughter, a girl, a woman? A human being? Her eyes gave nothing away. He entered the room quietly, walked behind her and inhaled the smell of her perfume, ran his fingers through her hair.

"Sometimes I wonder what's in your thoughts." he said.

"Oh, nothing," she replied and swanned her neck upwards as he kissed it, "I was worried that you wouldn't come. That you won't come back one day."

"Soon we won't have to worry any more, my Maria." he whispered, running his hands over her shoulders, and she stood up to embrace him. Maria. She hated the name.

"Michael, let's run away together. Tonight, tomorrow. Stop fighting before something happens to you."

"You know I can't do that.