“Praised be Union Day, and long life and prosperity to Ningando and its people.” He had practiced the phrase a thousand times, even using the hypnopedia to help him memorize it. A couple of sentences in the native language, without translators, were just the ticket to win over any audience from the get-go.
“But you must forgive me if I feel distressed in the midst of so much good cheer. I am so sad—because art is dead.” Ettubrute had just turned on his cybernetic translator. As always, Moy wondered whether a dead device could really catch and reproduce all the fine emotional and aesthetic nuances of his speech. He imagined not, but he had no other choice than to hope it would manage anyway—partially, at least.
“Art is dead. It was killed by holoprojections, by cybersystem chromatic designs, by musical harmonization programs, by virtual dance simulations, by all the technological paraphernalia whose only aim seems to be to eliminate the need not only for the artist’s skills, but even for the artist’s presence.” He was bending theatrically lower and lower, as if defeated by the circumstances. This was the sign for Ettubrute to start the activation sequence for all systems.
“But the artist refuses to be ignored! I refuse to fall into oblivion!” He lurched forward with a savage expression, and the Cetians drew back slightly.
Moy suppressed a smile: they were getting what they’d come for. The human savage. The elemental madman. The brilliant naïf, all subconscious, no processing.
“The artist cannot die. Because an artist enjoys the immortality of Prometheus. Because he dies in each of his works. Because he puts a piece of his life into each thing he creates. Because every bit of material that sprouts, transformed, from his hands is another piece of time that he has snatched from implacable entropy.” And Moy turned around to face the machine that was beginning to deploy.
As always, he was momentarily enraptured by the inexorable, lethal beauty of the device he had designed himself. Straightening up and growing like the hood of a colossal cobra or the ominous shadow of a dragon, the mechanical joints slid silently, one over the next. Until the archetypal figure of a cross had formed. Rising threateningly and enormous over the human’s silhouette. As if waiting.
Moy turned back to face the audience.
Too bad they wouldn’t get the Christian reference…
“The artist can and must die—in, through, and for his art. The artist is obliged to deconstruct himself in his art.” He noted with the usual satisfaction that the translator hesitated briefly at the word “deconstruct.”
Deconstruction. He could have included the term in the cyberglossary… but he liked to know that he, a simple human, a child of one of the least sophisticated cultures in the galaxy, could make his masters’ most advanced technology waver.
“The artist is a booster antenna. A funnel. He captures and guzzles the world’s pain and pours it out into his art,” and he took the apparently casual step backward that was the arranged signal.
The machine, like a carnivorous plastometal flower, leaned down and trapped him.
The Cetians stiffened with fright when the links and fasteners surrounded the human’s body and limbs like the tentacles of a giant polyp. Then they lifted him several yards above the stage without visible effort.
“The artist’s works are his clones, his children. They are his lacerated flesh and blood, his message. His anguished cry to a world that no longer hears any voice but that of pain and blood!” Moy howled heartrendingly.
The first five bleeders clamped onto his neck, thighs, and forearms, locating his veins with millimetric precision. Moy felt the shock of pain, masked almost immediately by the analgesics coating the needles. He winced; well, no one’s perfect. Can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, or do his performance without feeling some pain.
The negative pressure regulators worked properly, and five streams of scarlet liquid shot out in precise arcs. First sprinkling the stage, then falling into tiny crystal vessels that sprang from the machine, until they were filled. Then the bleeding stopped.
Moy made a fist with his right hand.
“He can deny his hand, try to exchange it for mechanical fakery. But no device can equal the fertile pain this hand feels when it holds a brush and creates.” He tensed and took a deep breath. Another dose of analgesics was injected into his system.
The semicircular blade sprang, swift and well-aimed as an axe blow, cutting the hand off and tossing it through the air. Another mechanism caught it before it could land. It connected electrodes to the convulsing nerves of the hand and put a brush in its fingers.
The hand, writhing, drew meaningless lines across the canvas that formed the stage, dancing in uncontrolled paroxysms. More and more slowly, until at last it remained motionless.
As usual, the spectacle drew murmurs from the well-mannered public. But Moy knew that the magic was already working. The audience was his. His slaves. He had them in his grip. He could do what he wanted with them.
“The fragile, transitory body is not what makes the difference. Who cares about the hand that drew the line, if the genius that drove it lives on in the line itself?”
Feeling the subtle creeping sensation inside the coarse fabric of his trouser leg, Moy relaxed his sphincter to allow the nanomanipulators to penetrate him. He recited a yoga mantra to stave off nausea while the delicate mechanisms snaked up through the curves of his intestine.
“Often, faced with the seeming perfection of the art, no one cares whether it was drawn by hand, claw, tentacle, or pincer. Some believe that art is art, whether made by a Da Vinci, by a Sciagluk, or by a computer.” Viewers waved their heads from side to side in agreement.
Moy hated the abstract, frigid compositions of Morffel Sciagluk. Nothing but a three-dimensional imitator of Mondrian, in his opinion. He only mentioned him for practical reasons: few of these Cetians knew the first thing about Leonardo. Or his Last Supper, or the Mona Lisa.
Through the veil of the analgesic drug, he felt the diffuse pain of the nanomanipulators penetrating him through arteries and capillaries, moving among muscles and tendons. Mobile fibers one molecule wide, spinning their web inside the edifice of his body. When the tickling reached his left arm, he gulped. The wave of analgesics that flooded his nervous system convinced him that Ettubrute was on the ball, that he could continue to the next step without risk.
“But only flesh and blood, mind and manipulating organ, can give birth to art. And if that exact conjunction does not exist—no art is possible.” He relaxed, waiting.
As always, the explosion surprised him as much as the audience. Though there was hardly any pain.
The meticulously measured collection of volatile molecules in his left arm transformed into an explosion, spraying bones, tendons, and fingers into a spectacular bloody cloud. By a calculated manipulation of force fields, the heap of remains that had once been an arm floated in the air for a few seconds without spreading. Until Ettubrute turned off the antigrav effect. Then they fell to the stage, amid the fervent applause of the enthusiastic spectators.
Taking advantage of the pause, Moy sought out the mestizo girl’s eyes. They were filled with admiration—and horror. Good. Now she was as much his as the rest of them. Or more so.
He strained his ear to try and figure out whether Ettubrute had already turned on the mechanical womb. It wasn’t really necessary yet; they had the best model on the market, and the synthesizing process was very quick. But it was always a relief to know that if something, anything, unexpected happened, then…
He pushed the thought from his mind and continued.
“Art is self-mutilation. It is the deliberate extraction of our most secret innards: our dreams.”