Matthew Fuller

500 SLOGANS
Libretto For Moving Forest
Transmediale08, Berlin
There is a murmuring in the wind, all the voicesthat are hidden underground.
Muttering in the slots of the cash machines.
Last night’s vomit shifts on the pavement.
Servo-motors are groaning, chewing on mist.
In the city of trees there are pockets of spacethat are immune to light.
In the city of trees there are floods of light thatcan never be seen.
But they will speak.
There is no single term that can summon us.
The forest is also a river, the corpses buried
under our trees, the slime that drips from ourbranches. Unnameable. We are your shallow
grave, covered in leaves. Bambi will nibble on
your fingers.
We will bankrupt your citadel.
Our entrails are open. Read your future there.
We are surrounded by cameras.
We live in the air.
Every stab hole can speak.
Every slot is a tongue.
We live in inversion.
All the signals are forces, make a city.
All that hassle, the petrol, the parking costs,
the childcare, my busted back: who’s goingto take over the world? Who has the time toscheme?
They imagine insurrection, they imagine gathering around a big building, an idea, and swallowing it. This would be easy. No. There are athousand years of slow burning hate, in hands,
faces, clean toilets and meals on tables.
The killing is already going on, unhurriedly.
Every household holds back the forest.
A queue.
Imagination is the capacity to think about what
is not there.
What are you missing?
You fuckers.
This is a brutal definition.
We can take over this signal.
We can eat this street.
Stop.
Now.
No.
Want.
More.
We.
You.
They.
Do.
Not.
Ask.
No.
Now.
We.
Do.

What is this murmur? The humming of bowls,
skinless drums, ready to be beaten.
Watch your signal.
A slogan has no full stop.
We move when we possess the requisite seriesof permissions.
Fight.
What are the sounds that a million mouths canmake all at once? They are either learned andrepeated, or consist only of vowels. This isa howl, not a slogan. Technically, we do notneed to speak. We are beyond screaming.
Asking doesn’t work. We only need to destroy.
The names and addresses of the ruling class.
Our fathers, husbands, sons.
A procession must be described beforehand
before permission can be granted.
X lay with Y and begat Z.
Y lay with A and begat B.
Z knew C and launched D.
D lay with F and bore E.
G knew H and called I.
X knew A and launched J.
Y multiplied C and equaled K.
D loved C and disgorged L.
F lay with H and set the value of M.
E lay with Y and was equal to N.
Z fuck H get O.
D knew H and begat P.
Y coughed blood up O’s shitter shat Q.
A loves M and was barren.
K multiplied F equals R.
C had carnal knowledge of Q and bore S.
N lay with K and bore T.
Y stole a process from N begat U.
R knew M equaled V.
N fuck R equals A.
O had N had a baby called C.
D knew K and bore F.
M knew P and bore G.
Y knew F and had H.
Growth.
In the body the skeleton is the fixed capital.
Meat has its own speed. Blood has its own
speed. Breath has its own speed.
Speeds overlap and make things.
Things overlap and make growth.
Growths move towards the castle.
Abundance is upon the earth.
Eat air. Eat waves. Eat signals. Eat wires.
Eat plastic. Eat instructions. Eat aerials. Eat
pipes. Eat pixels. Eat. Eat circuits. Eat theidea of eating, but do not feel yourselves to becapable of eating and drinking without being
gnawed at by the things
that slide into you as pulp.
You are lovely and round.
You are of a species that is almost extinct
outside of captivity.

Those who are wild are continually discoveredby logging companies.
They are erased.
It is not the defeated who can at will blot out
the past.
Drink.
Grow.
Slide out from between my legs.
Gush blood.
Gnaw at my bones, child.
We come together like Voltron.
We and come and together and like andVoltron and.
We or They or come or go or together or apartor like or unlike or Voltron or a whole made ofparts or.
We and They and come and go and together
and apart and like and unlike and Voltron anda whole made of parts and.
Betrayal breeds betrayal. Trusts breeds trust.
Betrayal breeds trust that betrayal will happen.
Us prisoners will force a dilemna on our jailors.
A betrayal cannot be seen coming.
The betrayal of a betrayal opens up a state thatcannot be predicted.
The betrayal of a betrayal of a betrayal makes
things certain.
The grammar of betrayals makes everyone
king.
Who can you trust now?
What game can you play to anticipate what
happens? Who lives? What moves?
What are their moves?
Things start to grow powers they do not own.
When did you begin to see yourself as God?
Is it an idea so easy to implant, that moment
when a future was mentioned?
Abuse of towers comes as no surprise.
You will be the greatest.
The sensation is not simply that of a word, of
being the Lord, but of noticing the way in which
you find the right perspective, the ability to see
all those who were once you equals as mere
stepping stones to your current position. Thisis wisdom. Those of them who are wise willplace their faces under your feet.
A whisper: the foundations are rotten.
The corpses mount up in the basement.
Bodies of girls start to shake.

Meat moves on your plate.
Cow’s milk turns to cheese in your throat.
Eggs hatch in your belly. See that purple sackdrag on the floor.
Flesh is rebirthed.
Clean your teeth carefully.
Do not breathe.
Bite open your face.
Eggs hatch.
Every rotten beam seeks your collapse. When
you are this scared, or this powerful,everything signifies.
A million droplets of water in every mouthful offog. It will drown you.
The faster you chase, the thicker the fog
gathers. You are blinded by your own speed.
In this cold, your own hot breath dams up youreyes. Keep panting.
Keep roaring, keep making rational statements
of intent. When you think, oh wise one, ohruler, let your jaw hang loose.
Scream out the intensity of your rage. Become
confident.
There is nothing we can do for you oh mighty
one, oh chief. You are so perfect that only you
could be your own most deadly assassin.
Many bodies are crushed in your confusion.
You will slip on the entrails - may you be
praised.
Listen to those you love, they will fuel yourstupidity. You may become emperor.
You must be placed nowhere in order to haveyou influence felt everywhere. Let us take you
down to where there is nothing.
This is a war between the rhinoceros and thegrass. We will grow over your bones.
Nixon bends over the corpse of JFK and fucks
the entry wound.
Oh, still warm mighty one.
The carcass arrives in Airforce One.
At the helm of an aircraft carrier surrounded
by a full fleet.
We cannot remember who you are. At thispoint, you will be worshipped.
Mission Accomplished.
You have liberated us.
You and us.
You or us.
You and liberation and us.
You or liberation or us.
You or us or liberation or domination of you
or us.
You and us and liberation and domination of
you and us.

Now we can breathe.
Listen very carefully, stop breathing: the soundof a twig slicing the breeze, thousands of them;that of a leaf rubbing over another, many; thespeeding up of a disk. The world is runningtowards the achievement of your destiny.
There is another forest in this city.
You must become sensitised to things that are
not signals.
You must hear things that have not yet beensaid, things that are not language.
Your skin will prickle at the trace of certain
numbers.
Listen to the singing.
The sound of sap being drawn up a trunk isthat of endless drinking.
Were the first human sedentary societies
those of the gardeners who stayed aroundwild fruit trees?
Because wild trees outlast wild humans didtrans-generational use of such trees, suchsites, condemn humans to the process ofscheming over their possession after death?
When the forest moves, can it still be tieddown?
By mapping genes responsible for the control
of tree habit, pest and disease resistance, andfruit characteristics, genes will be selected
to give the right requirements for high yields,
transportable fruit, pest resistance and earlymachine cropping.
By selecting for human-scale, dwarf
varieties that are easy to pick fruit from may be
developed.
By selecting for shortness of branches,columnar trees where the trunk gives directly
onto the stalk of a fruit may be achieved.
When the forest moves, can it still be tied
down?
When the forest grows numbers, does it
count?
All forests are harnessed to statistics.
All lungs grow models.
Every breath ends up as data.
Can we grow models fast enough to map thewreckage?
First we have fruit to slice. Dipped in:Mancozeb.
Captan.
Folpet.
Pesticides.
Fungicides.
All of these compounds are designed to killsome form of life and to do so in extremely low
concentrations.
Sprays for your luscious orchards.
Our leaves are dripping with it.
Alar.

Growth regulators reduce leaf and branch
growth. They encourage budding and fruit
production.
Growth is important.
Growth is necessary.
Growths will happen.
Grow and Grow.
Grow or Grow.
Grow or Grow and Grow or Grow.
Grow and Grow or Grow and Grow.
Grow and Grow and Grow and Grow and Grow
and Grow.
Grow and Grow and Grow and Grow and Grow
and Grow and Grow and Grow andCancer is a growth industry.
Inside the Castle, those statements that can be
captured are monitored and disassembled.
disease: cancer. predicates: growth; industry.
Subject: industry. Predicates: growth.
Analysis: statement includes double use ofterm as predicate. Indicates bifurcation of
meaning.
The uses of the words are mapped across toother instances of the same terms.
The table of all the uses of the words ranks thewords they are linked to.
The meaning of the words grows through what
they are next to.
As the meaning of all the words is logged, it
becomes clearer what they mean.
A child’s voice says: “The Shogun just stayed
inside his castle and he never came out. People said his brain was infected by devils.” His
mind was riddled by rule sets, riddles, axioms,
grammars that moved cells, made wires sing.
His mind is made of rules, riddles, axioms,
grammars.
His mind is made of rules not riddles, axioms
not grammars.
If his mind is made of rules then it is made ofriddles, if it is made of axioms then its is madeof grammars.
A child’s voice says: “His mind is made of
if not then.”A spider dances between thoughts.
Attention.
Pay attention.
The lice on the body of the emperor.
The stones of the castle.
The tongues of the servants.
A thousand perfect forms of administration.
Welcome to the house of world conflict.
We value your participation.
If we, then value.
The city of trees, arboreal sprawl.
Gnawing roads, drinking up sewers, bending
foundations, cracking pavements.
The forest returns to the city, begins to digest
the castle.
Insurrection becomes subsidence. There isnothing left to dominate. The land slides.
Last night’s servo-motors shift a million droplets.
The betrayal of betrayal equals succession.
One thing after another.

Grow plus grow.
Grow times grow.
Grow.
Ten thousand lifetimes of cleaning andscraping and feeding and washing andcarrying and buying and saving
in order to grow.
A million years of subordination to the next
generation in order to grow.
All children annihilate their parents.
You know very well: two is two.
Betrayal, flesh betrays flesh by growing.
Growing, it doubles, becomes two. Twoswallows one, creates a third. The third isuncontrollable.
Growth occurs when the third appears.
The third sits in the middle of the forest,
waiting.
It speaks to the first, and then to the second.
The third says that it will come after, that it has
already been after the first and the second.
The third knows how the first and the secondend.
The third spins webs from tree to tree.
The third picks an atom from the thin air andhangs a strand of silk from it.
The forest bulges, and a tree breaks open atthat point in thin air.
The third becomes a series: the moment whenthings trip over, out of whack, start running, a
motor, growth, proliferation.
A shout.
The river runs backwards.
No-one speaks about betrayal.
An orderly succession of rulers.
The correct adoption of emergency powers.
Democracy must be suspended in order tohide that it was always up in the air.
The symbols of power provide a false target,
away from its exercise.
Marinus, liefde, you needed a thousand boxesof matches.
How much more we need them now in an ageof light and openness shining from above.
Stabilise the centre.
Normality is strong.

Something to look at.
Send search patterns amongst the population.
Network analysis, flow control, keywords, deep
packet inspection, identity, trusted computing,security, data integrity, behaviour recognition, biometrics, social physics, data hygiene,
slow control, deep packet abjection, rusted
computing.
Surge.
Blowback.
The garrote, the sphincter, the diaphragm
closes on the castle.
A thick ripple runs in reverse across water.
Throw stones.
Take stones from the walls of prisons.
Overthrow them.
A shout in the street.
How long is the time before a shout bursts
through the walls of the castle?
How long before it rattles the corridors?
The shout is behind the head of the emperor.
A shout.
A shout that goes from one thing to another.
A shout that sets out every act of fuckery andviolence this body has had beaten, written,
allocated, stabbed, injected, injuncted,
smoked and paid into it.
Thoughtful advice.
Everybody.
The shout will not turn into a scream.
It is silent, and will not stop.
Shout and silent and will and not and stop.
The emperor is killing himself with ifs andthens.
The Emperor’s Dilemna.

We must feed ourselves with ands and ors.
The emperor, the shogun, the lord, thealmighty, the boss, the ditch, the arse, thedrain, the pustulent hole in the gum, rotten
head lopped off neck, blood squirter, zit.
pop.
The runny nose, the maggot, the turd in thebasement that grew white fur, ermine, roadkill,daddy, the ruler, chief executive, creative director, the chancred dick, piss for spunk, dangly
bollocks, god, friend, advisor and confidante of
the powerful and wealthy, expert commentator, much celebrated cocksnot, exit wound,fart, third nostril, broken tooth, spider husk,
priest, crushed pigeon, squirrel guts, bloody
handprint, kaiser.
Out.
Protector of the faith, constitutional symbol,
commander-in-chief, ancient tradition.
We and must and feed and ourselves and withand ands and ors.
We or must or feed or ourselves or with orands or and or ors.
We and / or must and / or feed and / or ourselves and / or with and / or ands and / or andand / or ors.
A shout and / or a shout and / or a shout and /or a shout and / or a shout and / or a shout.
If forest then the impossible.
If forest in the circle inside circles, inside
circles, inside the walls, then death.
Mist covers many crimes.
A million droplets make a tiny cast appear likea multitude.
Such things can be done by a tiny number.
Given the right special effects.
Insubordination.
Tricks of the light.
We say nothing.
The refusal to answer a direct question.
All minions of the world, stand still in fear andanger.
Run when your master lurches.
Kill him when you get a chance.
One arrow runs up to the back of the ruler’shead.
The verbals:
I tell the story of my life in the stabbings of atwisted knife.
I tell the story of my life in thick-shafted arrows.
I tell the story of my life in sword thrusts.
I tell the story of my life in data-entry.
I got rich by stuffing envelopes.
I wanted to earn 30-40 an hour working fromhome.
I pluck 30-40 chickens per hour.
I smoked crack from the pipe of the druglords.
I clean seeds by hand.
Spit flies over the head of the shogun.
Spit and / or flies over the head of the shogun.
Something as modest as doubt will not enter
the Lord’s theatre of betrayal.

There is a moment when betrayal watches
itself being betrayed by those it thought
incapable of action. This moment is precious.
Within a few seconds you will have to act ordie.
Suck arrows towards yourself oh lord.
All of them.
Drink it in.
See the sky fill with clatter.
Clicking shutters and arrows.
A ruler with his throat severed still makes
minions rattle.
Ring white round your eyes, stare fiercely.
You will be safe.
All that happens travels through the depths ofa camera.
Sucked through a lense, chunked through acircuit.
What falls outside the circuit: causes without
effects.
If it turns out that you will not be the greatest,
you will at least have been recorded.
The tokens of sudden understanding will be
registered.
Will X please tell me the length of his or her
life?
Sudden understanding, as you, mighty one,stand astride the mountain peaks, with yourfeet upon the floors of the oceans, may bearmour-piercing.
Sudden understanding may cause your eyes tobulge, with red rims on your holes, but thiseffect should not be taken for the condition
itself.
Sudden understanding, of a mighty one, may
be congruent with death.
You will make good money on the lecturecircuit following your execution.
Drip after drip.
The throttling of a collapsing throat, air turns
to blood.
Men make war because a heroic death iseasier and wins more praise than the daily
murder of wifing.
Keep things simple.
Ruler.
Fooler.
Leader.
Bleeder.
At the moment when the ruler notices that
he is not The Most Important Man his brain
assembles a list of all those who are now
more important. At the moment that this list
completes scrolling through his head, at the
moment when he sees, at the bottom of thelist, his corpse taxonomised as dung, he gives
up the ghost. Immediately before this moment,
the near corpse of the deposed ruler
recognises a simple sensation: that he wants
cold water running across his tongue, could dowith a kip.
The corpse of the ruler is shielded by such an
amount of under-armour and over-armour thateven when his rotten juice flows out throughthe chinks in the mail his body stays solid as
the carapace of a beetle.
Mist blankets the body.
Underlings gaze at the corpse and hold twothoughts in their head simultaneously: hateand love.

This really hurts.
They cry and cheer and hold each other andweep and kiss.
The underlings lament and / or cheer.
Scream and / or cry.
Collapse and / or faint.
Dance and / or seethe.
A copse of flowers is deposited with candles
and teddy bears and photographs andwell-wishes and poems and gifts around the
body of the despot.
This is an expression of love and of
democracy. The corpse of the despot stands
in for the suffering that is borne by the living.
The trees go into a bezerk branching.
Thick trunks split and split and split and split
until they become little twigs squirting leaves
out their ends.
The trees throw out thousands of seeds.
The seeds burst out of the ground andexplode into thick trunks.
Trunks split and split and split and split andsplit until they become roots sucking drops
into their ends.
Blossom squirts from twigs.
Fruit is hurled from the base of the withered
blossom and is gnawed upon by humans,
pigs and squirrels.
Some fruit is left upon the ground to rot,
where it ferments. The animals get drunk.
The fruit is slippery rotten. Sweet slime in a
bitter membrane, seeds in a chewy sac.
Animals stagger round shitting the seedsof the forest down the backs of their legs.
Hairless monkeys grab each other and rut
amongst the trees.
By shitting on each other they become
citizens.
Speeches are called for.
It is well known that the fall of the ruler makes
everything perfect.
and / or.
All returns to mist.
Bownian motion of drop upon drop, milling in
the turbulent air.
Mist of water replaces mist of blood.

Nothing to see here.
Move along now.
Move or along or now.
Move and along and now
Move if along if now
Move.
Move now.
The most important man makes fair to averagecompost.
Life becomes perfect.
This day will be re-enacted.
There is no constraint on jubilation.
The memory of this day will be called upon toensure a further slaughter.
Death is better than work.
Drink.
Drink up.
Drink it all in.
Drink and drink and drink and drink and drink.
Festivals are revolution for the depressed.
The eyeballs of the Lord’s consultants cloud,shrivel and slide out of sockets.
Grass grows over broken knuckles.
The forest slides backwards and forwards.
Felled trees make good barricades. This is
why cities are full of them. They are ready.
Land slides over land. Line hatches line.
Branches overlap.
Pine in flames.
Oak ablaze.
Burning beech.
Live in a house on fire.
Put the kettle on.
Here comes the mist.
We could use some steam.
One last gasp always.