How much of this is fiction. @ FACT, Liverpool

t b h I have been down these past few weeks. it has been taking me a while to get out of bed in the morning, I have had a lot of sadness baths. I’ve slowed down to think why, n I am pretty sure it’s because I never completely rest. Resting for me has always meant playing on the internet but now that both of my jobs are at computers, i can’t enjoy it aimlessly like i could when I was 15. With The White Pube, notifications from twitter, instagram n emails just go on and on forever n ever amen;;; and of course, I love that interaction but obviously notifications are not coming to me during anything like normal office working hours. there’s no distinction between work and free time or place. i tweet at all hours/my office is in my bedroom/I can be out with a friend but see an email and anxiously reply bc I find it so hard to delay or deny my notification-response-time. You know on kid’s tv show challenges where they would get a contestant to stand in front of a wall of lights and have them hit the ones that lit up, in a test of speed and hand-eye-coordination? i feel like I am playing that game all the time with the internet. and all this time I've been like wow look at me i am the admin queen so efficient and professional - but also look at me having a sadness bath bc I deffo can’t touch my phone with wet hands n then maybe i will be free. ha ha o dear

so I want to get better at stopping sometimes. This week I turned my laptop off until I really needed to use it for work. i quieted push notifications, +muted conversations. for play, I read an entire book of Miranda July stories; borrowed Pokemon X from my cousin; went out, saw family. I also watched TV, and like, watched entire shows right the way through without flicking from screen to screen, or tab to tab like i frantically do all day, for a living lol. hello ive found a new luv for 24 Hours in A&E, and Gordon Ramsey’s kitchen nightmares USA. Gordon Ramsey is a generous n caring critic and the only blonde man i can suffer i stg. he’s great.

*In my new state of paying attention to one thing at a time, i am even here for the adverts. there r so many adverts for toothpaste aren't there? it’s quite funny how many different toothpastes dentists are recommending the public. they really can’t make their minds up*

and ye: to get to the art, this is an exhibition review after all lol: I dragged myself to the new show at the FACT called How much of this is fiction. The exhibition presents a fake museum for Guantanamo bay, which feels like a documentary stretched out into gallery form. i am into that but as is usual with the FACT, there were nine million points of contact in the gallery space: writing on the floors and walls, stressful lighting, interactive video, information moments, more videos, lots of art-cum-museum things. i normally luv that multiplicity but it's exactly what I was trying to avoid this week/ so out of that noise, I paid attention to just two things.

1. I liked the exhibition title a lot. How much of this is fiction. it’s a nice gesture, it’s guiding, soft (but only in your mouth and your mind. I wish it wasn’t in neon across the foyer ffs, i hate how often the FACT supports a gross male ‘coolness’ aesthetic n I'm not here for it. those words could have been poetry).

and 2. > a long video by Coco Fusco called Operation Atropos. (I settled myself and watched it through, feeling like a faux Good Art Person for the discipline to watch a video in a gallery when really it meant I didnt have to engage with anything else). In the video, Coco + a group of friends go to an interrogation training day that sees them abducted with their consent, by trainers who believe being a prisoner teaches u how to interrogate better once u are on the other side. It is necessarily violent, and the kind of video that makes you wonder about the intentions of the performance artist as they play with the politics of punishment, justice, identity, and war. except Coco Fusco wasn't playing. she is seriously active. i recommend going in to see this, tho the bench u watch it from does not have a back and that is shit when you want to stay for a long video. Dear every art space, I wish you would get better seating pls think about your visitors n how we are not robots.

ok so then i just left. I didn’t go to the upstairs gallery bc my exhibition energy was spent, n that’s fine and allowed. so goodbye reader, I am going to turn my laptop off again for the day n look after myself. I'm goin to find my work/life balance. I hope u have found yours. i should say as well: if you ever feel a little in despair or in crisis and you want to talk to someone anonymously, no judgement, non-religious, the Samaritans freephone is 116 123 or u can email or text them too bc it's 2017. (That is my other job btw, i work for them. and with that + the white pube, i feel like my life is very whole and emotionally supported.

it's okay to not be okay sometimes) xxxxxxxxxxx