Skin flâneur

In our wanderings about the city, we pass through each other. What is a human being, after all? Nine of every ten cells in our bodies are not human: bacteria, fungi, viruses, yeasts and symbiants. Skin is an elastic transponder coated in a rich zootic mesh. Tens of thousands of skins drift pass each other on the street every day, spraying out cells in a continuous fountain while absorbing the metropolitan microbiome. Great spooky vectors of mass information exchange. We depend on the grand illusion of being, of separateness. But we slough off into the city. We are the city.

Joseph Heathcott is a a writer, educator, and photographer in NYC, where he teaches at The New School. He has published articles and photos in a wide range of magazines and journals, including Antioch Review, Camera Obscura, Next American City, Folly Magazine, 5 x 5, On Site, Metropolis, National Civic Review, Cross Currents, and Art Documentation.

One Response to “Skin flâneur”

  1. This is beautiful, it made me think of holding a cold rock to my skin, it made me think of breathing.

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