Live To Win

Some years ago while shoplifting from a major hardware store I experienced a type of old fashioned security system – one that needs no technology, or cameras or electronic tags and yet has the possibility to be everywhere. I’m speaking of the undercover security guard, and I found the experience remarkable because it caused me to reflect on how systems of fascism and state control have always relied on the impulse that humans have to turn on one another. Much like the panopticon (a circular prison system designed around a central tower from which guards could, in theory, always be watching), centralised states with heavy surveillance – like the former German Democratic Republic, or the Stalinist USSR, keep their citizens in check by making sure that there could always be someone watching. Lets call this “someone”, Mr Invisible – because he is everywhere, yet only reveals himself at strategic moments. Mr Invisible is the shadow that walks just a step behind you, keep...

The Djemaa el-Fna square bustles and throbs. Its lights glimmer in the smoke of cooking fires that rises and twines its way through the thronging crowds of hustlers, beggars, locals and tourists. But at it’s heart, on the eastern edge and in full view of the stalls and restaurants there is a hole. Bandaged in sagging earthen cloth over a makeshift wooden construction frame, the Argana Cafe is a stark emblem of violence, like a wound on this colourful square. Less than a year ago an explosion ripped through its guts, wounding 20 people, and killing 15. What colour they were, their social standing or occupations was swept aside by a blast that scattered bodies, and drained the square of its touristic life blood for months afterwards. They’ve come back of course; they always will explains my friend Hakim. But it’s a frightening reminder of the darkness here or anywhere that there is a cultural clash between worlds and attitudes. Do locals turn their heads away and tr...

I like airports. It's the sense of their potential, alongside their transitory emptiness that makes a strange poetic harmony. They are waiting to be filled with meaning. Which gives you the sense that anything is possible in an airport, that every choice you make has significant effect on what comes next. It's usually with hindsight that we identify the moments or spaces where our lives change. It's hard to be inspired by these moments because seen in retrospect this is where possibilities die, where futures are locked into place and where unchangeable reality is formed. Everyone has played the 'what if' game at some difficult point in their life, but at some level we all know that it's an unhealthy exercise. The events which have led to a situation can't be changed, although the readings of them can, so generally it's better to accept the present and focus on planning for the future. So what do you make then, of a situation where the present could ...