Blackholed - Pansy Duncan

Proceeding from the premise that there's a perfectly mathematical explanation for it all, let us agree, then, to let (a) stand for artist and (b) stand for bag. If (a) is not a letter of the alphabet but a pure algebraic symbol, then like any other abstract entity, (a) can be confidently relied upon to make no sound - until it gets inside the plastic bag. Oddly, (a) can be added to (b) but (b) cannot be added to (a) - at least, not without seeking medical help, according to the mathematical law by which a plastic film, if swallowed, constitutes a medical emergency. Yet even so, if (a) plus (b) equals an artist in a black plastic rubbish bag, then there's something wrong with this equation - already, it seems, we're pressing at the side of the formula the way the artist's body presses at the limits of the black plastic bag. Even supposing that (b) is equal to zero (0), you have to wonder how zero (0) got a hole in it - a hole at least wide enough for a normally proportioned artist to wriggle her way inside. If, by entering the bag, the artist effectively removes its most objectionable feature, its emptiness, is the mathematical operation by which this is accomplished properly understood as an addition or subtraction? And where has she put it (the emptiness, I mean)? If a mathematical proof is an artist inside a black plastic bag, then is the bag fully waterproof or is the rain seeping through the hole in the argument? The square root of the act of looking is the side of the bag we can see minus the side of the bag we cannot - that can be taken as given. But if (a) is added to (b) in a mathematical operation by which (a) throws herself - figuratively speaking - out, then is (a) entering the bag or leaving the room? And if the premises are left behind entirely then what do we have to build our argument on? After all, once added, (a) can't be subtracted from (b) without damaging the plastic. Does this mean the sum of the equation (a) plus (b) is equal to the interior of the bottom of a black plastic bag, a black hole? Or is it a purely abstract proposition? Here's hoping it stays that way, since if (a) is a human body and (b) is a bag, then (b) is a body-bag and (a), it seems, is a body.

Right - Rachel O'Neill 'In the boundary' - TV/DVD loop, black plastic bag, rubbish bin, 2004