NEW WORLD
IN THE YEAR 2018, IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE, XINONA LIVES ON POST-APOCALYPTIC WORLD DEVOID OF BEAUTY AND LOVE. THEN THE WEIRD HEADS COME CALLING ... WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY KAHERÓ:TON.
XINONA AND THE WEIRD HEADS IN A LAND WITHOUT LOVE AND BEAUTY.
It is the year 2018 in an Alternate Universe. It’s a series of planets. Three of them. One planet is made of Kombucha. One is made of Kale.
And the Government AKA Weird Heads live on the biggest and best planet, the one that’s made of Beer, brewed by their ancestors.
Xinona is living in a postapocalyptic, dried-out economy devoid of funding for art, for living, for loving, and for everything else.
She sits in her spaceship, bobbing on the waves of Kombucha planet, her home. She spends a lot of time watching sci- fi television on her phone.
Xinona gets an incoming transmission from the Government AKA Weird Heads: “Greetings Xinona, We at the Government AKA Weird Heads have taken an interest in your work. We know that you’re Indigenous to Kombucha Planet, and we feel SUPER STRONGLY ABOUT IT. It’s so sad how your people judge each other by how much Kombucha is in your veins. Isn’t everyone a human after all?
You have been selected to produce a work in proximity to your ethnocultural Kombucha identity. 2018 is the year that we reflect on the founding of this confederation of planets, as you know. We look forward to a commissioned work of art, a work that asks: What does it mean to be a citizen of this federation of planets today? We want a work with heart, perhaps a work from the breathless ‘ I,’ and most importantly, a work palatable to a mainstream audience — an audience, may we add, that’s dying (living, actually) to know the complexities of your authentic reality. It’s what makes you special, after all. “Admit it.” Xinona says yes, because she has no money.
But a story like this is never just about one artist. Many things happen in this confederation of planets while the solo, commissioned artist toils away in obscurity.
A collective of artists on the planet made of Kale continues to create works about the wilting, curling leaves.
The Kombucha planet’s sea floor is host to entire art exhibitions. They are all tinted the same amber hue.
A curator, after falling out of favour on Beer planet, takes an admin position on its ice moon. There, through her contentious digital media programming and her focus on politically engaged art, she shatters into a million pieces on purpose. From then on, she continues to rain down on Beer planet, subtly and imperceptibly diluting i t and therefore haunting it with her influence — forever.
At the Kale planet’s research institute, gravity has been scientifically proven to be a force leaking in from another universe ( ours, actually), where it is called Longing. So every time you feel unrequited desire for someone across a river, you’re causing an entire planet some- where else to very slowly collapse on itself. Which is probably fine with you, isn’t it?
Meanwhile, back on Kombucha planet: “Dearest Log, As I am summoned from obscurity by the government to represent myself ( esthetics are propaganda by other means) … suddenly I can feel the Kombucha pulsing thru me — I can see its amber hue running thru the veins on my hands as I type.
Richard William Hill has written about the increase in attention to Indigenous art 500 years after Columbus’s Atlantic crossing: “In a 1992 interview, James Luna, worried that this attention would be a one- time phenomenon, asked: ‘ Will you call me in 1993?’”
What if I wanted to make art exclusively about growing garlic? I need some perspective.
“I need to get outta here. End Log.”
Xinona presses some controls and her ship sinks under the surface of Kombucha planet.
As she sinks down into the wet Kombucha abyss, little pellets form around her. The pellets are ideas that hit against her windshield; each idea splatters like a bug.
The deeper she gets, the less she feels like she’s any one thing anymore. She becomes less of everything: a gender, indigenous to Kombucha planet, indigenous to anything, a body, a brain, a citizen, an artist. She is just two eyes in the dark.
She soon approaches a dark object in the deep. In the sea of Kombucha, she encounters The Mother. The Kombucha Mother that is always there.
The Mother begins to speak: “Xinona, speaking through sanctioned allegories you will never say what you need to say. It will only ever be boring, uninteresting propaganda. You’ll end up putting feathers on everything. Someone will make you add a flute soundtrack. You’ll end up doing something weird at the Olympics. Your soul-searching has brought you here, which means you have been thinking about this a lot. You’ve been worried. How annoying for you. I’m sorry.”
Xinona asks: “Mother, what am I supposed to do then?”
The Mother: “You have to consider what myth is used for. The myth of nationhood, the myth of the breathless ‘ I,’ the myth of ‘ how things should have been.’ The Government AKA Weird Heads have a purpose for myth. But you can remake myth for yourself. If you want to survive, you have to. I have been watching you for a very long time. I will always be here for you, whatever you decide to do.”
Xinona thinks deeply and presses her spaceship control button.
Xinona flies her ship at high speed into The Mother, exploding both of them.
Kombucha planet slowly begins to dissolve. It gets everywhere and makes all the other planets smell straight- up disgusting, like vinegar. The Government AKA Weird Heads are soaked in Kombucha.
The Government AKA Weird Heads complain: “This wasn’t supposed to happen — this isn’t punctuated with the markers of national identity we require. Everything is ruined.”
“Is it too late to ask that other artist? What’s-his-name?”
Somewhere, in some other universe, Xinona is reborn as something else.