Batakliev's Bloc

The supermarket is a dangerous place. Please, drive your trolleys carefully and avoid congested spots for the sake of your life and the lives of others. Now, traffic lights are GO, turn left, then slam straight to toiletries . CAUTION: baby onions and Chardonnay from Chile are cutting through from the left. Two blond braided baby girls, screaming their guts out, on your right, are advancing slowly but surely. One of them starts throwing up, here we go, congestion causes indigestion. This is a proper traffic jam and you've only accommodated one courgette and a gallon of low-fat milk in your vehicle. The driving rules are yet to be defined. As a high-speed grandma dashes right between your legs, an obese banana lands on your back and the contents of a top-shelf box of chocolates scatter artfully across the floor. Just as the walls start closing in on you, there's Belinda Carlisle's innocently pre-Shakirean voice crooning out "Heaven is a place on Earth". Well, y

Wrapped in cotton wool of sizzling foam, lay three naked bodies. Freshly scrubbed of the multiple layers of the mundane. I resided in one of them. Couldn't tell which one as things appeared differently at the height where I was hovering and the mountains of foam made gender undecipherable. I remember that I liked it. Through every sensor, receiver, antenna of my body I felt intense pleasure, so well-deserved it brought tears to my eyes. A humongous jellyfish was ejaculating comforting wet bubbles all over me. I was entering a whole new state of pleasurability compared to which my prior experiences of physical or spiritual gratification seemed premature and perfunctory. Blurrrrr...The retreating army of the mundane, the piercing eyes of the masseuse, the setting, the situation, the script. I had to ask for pen and paper at the reception desk. They gave me apple tea and Turkish delight . As well. The epics of pleasure are now being put in writing. Paradise smells like cinnamon

Italian men walking dogs in the park. Awesomely awash in starlight.

Blue leather glove, sprawled upon the cobbled bridge, kicked through and through, spat on, crushed by scurrying sensation-hungry feet of Spanish sighseers, time after time. Blue leather glove engraved in my brain. Forget about it...No, wait. ..its beveled contours branded upon the cobblestones. Lonesome, No, singular. A statement of sufficiency. Its other half adds nothing but the convention of a pair.

Once upon a time, there was a tailor called Saeed. In his tiny studio he was making outlandish garments for future brides. Day in, day out, the tailor was singer-sewing, humming the sweet tones of Mon Amie la Rose and Soleil D'Egypte . His eyes would glisten with glee every time his long fine fingers added a touch of lace to a delicate design. One day, a fairy  knocked on the door of his tiny studio. This was not entirely uncalled for. Fairies had often visited the tailor in his dreams but this was the first one to appear in the flesh. The fairy was a spitting image of Saeed and she was wearing one of his bridal dresses. For the first time Saeed could see how his work complemented him. "You a just a man in a dress", Saeed couldn't help saying. "Why have you disguised yourself like this?" "It's an acquired habit.", the fairy answered calmly. "Being eccentric is all about expressing yourself through acquired tastes and habits." T

The rain falls down. Sometimes less. Sometimes you arrive at work wet from the waist down only. Once inside the accommodating womb of the office, you stare fixedly at the raindrops trickling down the window. On a morning like this , they tend to look like spermatozoids trickling down a pleasure dome. A chimera. Then you catapult yourself back into the world of obligations, monthly installments and recurrent appointments. Life-improvement services require discipline and servitude. Your iPhone subscription is not excessive in consumption, yet it wouldn't be making your life complete without serial sustenance. And yet, the essential man knows no fear of routine and excels in rising above it. The essential man resides in you. The same you which is accidentally caught up between your mortgage plan and your Oedipal duties.

The light-and-shadowplay behind my eye-lids in a state of pre-sleep or near-awakening. The proximity of the inner world, the recycled patterns of the outside world. Slanted planes of dotted light reflections. Gentle morphs bring a subtlety of colour closer to the mind's eye. The darkness provides the background for a drizzle of semi-transparent reds and yellows. An unobtrusive take-over. Directing this art takes calm and focus and results in projective auto-creation. An intuitive screen-saver of your imagination. Before you know, you are a visitor in your own mind.

Paris is password-protected. Berlin is open-source. Paris is a lover. Berlin is a comrade.  Paris is singular. Berlin is plural. Paris is pure poetry. Berlin is pure. Paris is a gold-studded oxygen mask. Berlin is oxygen. Paris has a heart of Gold. Berlin is not heart-centred and treats its internal organs equally. They all come in gold, silver or bronze and get served with sauerkraut .  Paris is all about timing. Berlin is anytime. Paris doesn't bite. Berlin is edible. Paris is mystifying. Berlin is occasionally overcast. Berlin is history repeated. Paris is history.

He is as cliche as the Chinese characters tattoo on his left forearm. If he were a band, he would be U2. Generally likable yet severely non-distinct. He only serves as an introduction to me. An imaginary protagonist in a belletristic exercise. So that's him. What about her? Is she worthy of the stage? Can she fulfill a little part of me, maybe a reflection of him? You know, maybe she could have the Chinese characters tattoo on her right shoulder which is even more cliche with her being a woman...and an artist. Right...so she is an artist. She is a nurse of the Universe and she is becoming worthier of the stage as we speak. I must admit, the character generation process so far has been leasurely and honest.

I still haven't recovered from your performance at Parc de la Villette . You disturbed the ether and this disturbance was bitter-sweet. The diameters of my remotest recesses expanded. Thank you for the post-audible vibrations that shook the ground under my feet. Thank you for exposing the deep shit and deep soulfulness, the burning hell of our inherent Balkanism. Thank you for raising your finger heavenwards to clear the path for the piercing yells that brought a smile to my lips. You know, I am a slow recoverer so I may dwell in the comfort of your spell for yet another while. (No one else can) Sing the blues to me. IB

When I was 18, I attended a video-art workshop in Sofia. The Hungarian lady who was the main lecturer reminded me of my high school literature teacher. She didn't really look like her but she moved like her, smiled like her, bore some intrinsic semblance to her. I decided to shoot a video about pairs of people who are not connected by blood yet happen to be universally related. I called them Arbitrary relatives . The video project was not feasible and never kicked off. The Arbitrary relatives idea stayed with me throughout the years. It pops up in my head on regular basis oozing some unfathomable fascination. My girlfriend in Scotland is a mother of two. She takes care of the kids and looks after the house. Her arbitrary sister is an American copywriter based in Amsterdam. Their lifestyles are mutually exclusive yet their kinship is unequivocal. In my head I have been executing the idea in various shapes and forms, interfaces, media. Yet this is the first actual step towards materi