Heat Maps: Desire in the dark

Heat MapsDesire in the dark Alex Marzano-Lesnevich (bio) 25. the filmmaker informs us he has found a new way to record death. The next slide he shows is of his equipment: a thermographic camera that renders heat as light, its body black and shiny, its edges curved and seductive. Below, in capital letters, the brand name: FLIR—which I misread as FLIRT. Flirting, I think, is a way of seeking heat. We are at an arts residency in France, gathered in a room named for an ancient military guardhouse. I have birthed and killed off so many selves in pursuit of heat. Phantoms and personas and performances, the me's I wanted to be and the me's I was willing to be. For a moment I imagine them lined up like toy soldiers, tipping backwards into each other as each in turn dies its little death. [End Page 64] 24. On screen, men glow hot and bright as ghosts. Matadors, they wear bolero jackets of rich brocade that the camera renders dense and cold, deeply black. We are each of us swaddled in threads of story that burn and shimmer, but the threads that sheath each matador swallow light. Into the frame wanders a man wearing a hoodie, his clothing disturbing our sense of time. Its empty hood flops and lolls behind him, darkness pooling in its mouth. 23. Then off the men stride. The screen goes completely dark. I feel its cold pass over my skin and grope soundlessly under my seat for the cup of hot tea I have tucked there. It is tepid now, and I hold the liquid in my mouth without swallowing. Next to me, a woman shifts in her seat. I think of her warmth and imagine her glowing. I think of the person I have been texting each day alone in my writing studio here, trading longer and more elaborate notes. I am not their lover, but they have told me of their desires, their love of being tied in rope and suspended. As I hold the liquid in my mouth, still not allowing myself to swallow, I think of the rope. Perhaps it is cold sisal and scratches. More likely it is black silk and slips. I think of their skin, warm when their lover tightens the knot, perhaps hot and smarting if slapped. Then how it cools as they are left to hang. I think of meat hung to dry, coldness stealing over it slowly. I think of the first dead body I ever saw, in a room silent, bright white, and refrigerator-cold, and how its flesh pooled and settled. 22. A bull has appeared on screen, white hot. It stands strangely still, and, knowing what I know, knowing that I am here to watch a new way to record death, I am instantly tense. Yet the bull seems unbothered. Only his testicles sway, soft and heavy, a sunflower head in a breeze. Then an answering swing of his tail. Bright white shit plops from his ass. 21. A matador approaches. At first, how near he comes to the bull is a surprise, but why should it be? Surely death will be an intimate [End Page 65] Click for larger view View full resolution Oscar Vincentelli, still from La sangre es blanca (Blood Is White), 2020. [End Page 66] dance. The ground is splotched in glowing shit. The matador shuffles close, then further away, brandishing his cool cloth flag until the bull lowers his head and charges. Light smears into brush-strokes that paint the ground. 20. We have been told we will watch death. With each flourish of the matador's flag, the dance seems more pointless, a mockery. Cruel. The bull, we know, will die. Why be this near and not act? 19. The screen wipes black again. Now there are three bulls, three matadors, each couple performing the same dance. The bulls' hooves thunder and thwack. The sound is too loud, amplified, and I remember, as a child, watching men clomp coconut halves on a stage as they demonstrated how film was scored. Sound becomes proof of action. For a moment I imagine the...