Escape Plan

A redacted installment from the novella/anti-memoir, Anima + Angel …

Image – Café Noir, Venice, Italy. Photo: Gavin Keeney.

TO LJUBLJANA

As the escape plan (exile plan) approached, Anima + Angel returned to speak to me, from time to time. She would tap my left shoulder when in agreement with a thought. She rarely spoke directly. But she could also disagree with me. She could say, “No” – as often as she could say, “Yes.” And she could say “No” to something I thought that she should say “Yes” to – and vice versa. Yet generally, she was there for support. For it was she who had fashioned the seven-day-no-return flight to Venice back in February, requiring that I go to Ljubljana before I go to Venice.

As of the first few days of May synchronicity was kicking in again (finally). Venus had entered Aries and promptly crossed paths with Neptune. There were numerous moments. Perhaps the best was when on May 3, while browsing a bookstore, I ran into Jung’s Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle, first published in 1952. I did not purchase it immediately. I took a walk, had two Smithwick’s (an Irish red ale), and then circled back to purchase it for [REDACTED] USD. I bought it to read during my forthcoming travels. Or so I said to myself. Prior to that purchase, I had bought a North Face Men’s Cyclone 3 Jacket for [REDACTED] USD after circling Nature’s Closet for about half an hour looking for anything that might make my voyage more amenable. The jacket struck me as perfect for all of the reasons I could imagine. It was foul-weather gear, and it was very lightweight and could be compressed easily in my minimalist luggage. If caught in a cyclone, I was now prepared.

When you have no idea what the day has in store, reach for the Cyclone III Jacket. Designed with WindWall windproof technology and durable polyester, you’ll stay warm and protected as you explore the city or mountain edges. Elastic cuffs and an adjustable hood mean the wind can’t get in either. This jacket is part of our Circular Design initiative, a collection designed to minimize waste and pollution.

Another level of mischief that began around May 2-3 was the appearance out of nowhere of new references to Franciscanism. Perhaps I was unconsciously seeking them. I wanted to finally make contact with the Capuchins in Venice, if at all possible, at Il Redentore. Anima was also encouraging me to re-think (re-visit) the concept of “Aquileia,” a long-standing dream image of a non-place halfway between Venice and Ljubljana. The voyage she arranged seemed to have sacred aspects that I could not quite make out, even as almost every profane effort I made to arrange meetings regarding the Slovene Visa-D (now “residency”) application produced mostly silence. She was a mischievous spirit. She made me re-think expectations without ever wavering in insisting that I go out on a limb again (saw in hand).

Financial agency was “compelling.” I had just over [REDACTED] USD to access, though all of it was technically credit, including the [REDACTED] USD from [REDACTED]. [REDACTED] USD was the combined value of two credit cards, now paid off due to [REDACTED]and several gifts (including [REDACTED]). There was some repetition here from past years, where money arrived just in time to stave off utter poverty. Yet “poverty” was the main theme, since everything planned would slowly wipe out the financial agency unless replenished, and replenishment was never foreseeable. Lucerne loomed large on the horizon, with the fees for the late-June, early July Summer School, of close to [REDACTED] USD, due at a moment’s notice. A Swiss Air flight from London to Zurich and back was paid for, but accommodations were still to be dealt with. Furthermore, if the exile plan did not work out the first time around, i.e., with the trip to Ljubljana-Venice, I would have to return to the USSA and then book another flight to London to catch the flight to Zurich. It all made no sense and it was all the usual game of endless speculation and turning on a dime. When it would all make sense was anyone’s guess.

[…]

TO VENICE

Anima + Angel led me back to Venice on May 11, after three nights in Ljubljana. What transpired within twenty-four hours of arriving in Ljubljana was spellbinding. A series of meetings, a series of conversations, and a single e-mail suggested long-delayed agency for the EO1 project in Ljubljana. Maybe. Had my near-endless calculations perhaps finally paid off? Was my sense that nothing ever happens in Slovenia unless you are actually “there” confirmed? Long story short, the chance of academic support beyond the symbolic realm was cut short. No one would directly touch the EO1 project within the academic world. They would issue “sub rosa” support. Good enough. The single e-mail was about the search for a letter of support for a Visa-D application. It came from [REDACTED]. They might now help with the much-needed letter from a government agency.

[REDACTED]

In advance of arriving in Ljubljana, I had requested a meeting with [REDACTED] to discuss the Visa-D “option.” Paradoxically, he was in Venice when I arrived in Ljubljana, returning to Ljubljana as I departed for Venice.

Last meetings in Ljubljana on Saturday eve produced similar non-results. Symbolic support was renewed, and the next morning I left early for Venice with much trepidation.

CAFÉ NOIR

I had two Leffe Rouge beers at Café Noir as I wrote this retrospective report in Venice on May 11. The “here and now” was kicking in again … Down the lane (calle) was [REDACTED], where I would stay as nominal tourist in Venice as I sought some way to become “resident” once again through the same games of chance played since 2015 or so … This also involved speaking with as many friends there as I could muster on short notice. I would spend two days wandering the Architecture Biennale and then two evenings on the Giudecca to meet anyone who might show up.

ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE

The 19^th International Architecture Exhibition, Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.

Image – Venice Architecture Biennale Brochures. Venice, Italy. Photo: Gavin Keeney.

The 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, curated by Carlo Ratti et al., is not about architecture. If anything, it is about the failure of architecture. The vast majority of the national pavilions interpret the concept of “intelligens” (the Biennale’s brief) as a call to arms – i.e., to correct the failures of architecture. They invoke all manner of “mannerist mischief” in the process. “Yes,” it is as if (but only as if) the humanist agenda has failed once again. The invocation of other intelligences is, therefore, a type of default post-humanism and, in the case of architecture, anti-modernism.

Progress (as ideology) has failed or faltered. The Earth is at risk from collective ambitions to tame nature by destroying nature. In the case of the Biennale, the main culprit (Capitalism) is never named. Cosmology appears again and again, in different forms or settings, suggesting that we have turned our backs on the Greater Good that cosmology embraces or signifies. Nature, the cosmos, and humanity are intertwined in the attempts of the various postures assumed by the participants in the Biennale to envision a collective way out. Architecture is given the chance to expiate its guilt (sins) by learning to recycle and re-purpose its physical, moral, and historical debris. It is being asked to (finally) discipline itself – to get over its God complex. It is not so clear that it has the ability to do so given the architectural ego associated with most practices and most schools across history and up to the present moment. We often see, however, technological solutions displayed through the re-subjugation of nature in service to our needs (architectural hubris). From the micro to the macro level, many solutions to long-standing problems take on a new technological arrogance that includes AI. From these various positions assumed, it is apparent that architecture can hardly stand upright – e.g., that it is a legless invalid and/or a one-legged pirate looking for new conquests.

SYMBOLIC LAUNCH

The symbolic launch of the EO1 project in Ljubljana had involved printing documents related to “first projects” and then selectively “gifting them” to whomever seemed the right person per document per moment. The same was intended for Venice, and I managed two meetings – one planned and one accidental. The first was my longest-standing Venetian colleague, a librarian from [REDACTED]where I had a research residency in 2017. She received the draft essay “Dante + Franciscanism.” The second was an artist I had met in 2017 on the Giudecca. She was walking past Bar Palanca as I sat waiting for another artist-friend, who never showed up due to the fact that I never confirmed a time. I had forgotten to do so in the swirl of the campaign to process the Biennale in record time. But, the miraculous appearance of the other artist-friend was more than compensation. Thus, she received “EO1 Scriptorium.” The librarian-friend also received a full complement of the W4W DVD Archive. She would hide these somewhere and/or add them to her personal library. That particular operation had as much to do with dispersing physical works to as many locations as possible as it did with “gifting” that particular DVD archive to “Venice.” The one place it would never end up, however, was at [REDACTED]. In declaring my librarian-friend “my archivist,” I was signaling the same message delivered in Ljubljana. EO1 was now, officially, preternatural and extra-territorial. It would have no formal institutional relationship, as all institutions thus far engaged over the years of its long-tail (its emergence across serial projects) had fallen further into the quagmire of the endgames of neoliberal knowledge production.

[…]

TO LONDON

My departure from Venice for London departed VCE (Marco Polo Airport) at 12:40pm on May 14. I headed out early from [REDACTED] and took a Number 5 bus from Piazzale Roma to the airport, giving myself plenty of time to deal with British Airways. I had checked in the night before but needed boarding passes. Check-in had also, once again, produced a message saying that “one of my destinations” in the booking from VCE to LHR to JFK required scanning my passport. This had also occurred in the JFK to LHR to VCE check-in process. It seemed that it was passing through LHR that prompted this message, even though I would never pass through passport control at LHR, in either direction, since all flights arrived and departed from T5. I was now concerned about the relatively late arrival at JFK (i.e., 7:25pm, if on time) since immigration at JFK could be nightmarish, with long lines, and the combined amount of time required for clearing immigration, catching the AirTrain to Jamaica, and then taking the E train to Manhattan could total a couple of hours. I had checked Amtrak trains out of Penn Station and the last train “North” was at 9:24pm. It all seemed way too close for comfort. My default position of staying in NYC with friends had been invoked, but I did not have an answer as of the moment I walked out the door of [REDACTED], and I would have no access to e-mail while traveling without risking using public wi-fi at VCE or LHR – which I always refused to do.

Upon arrival at gates 46-47 at VCE for the BA flight to LHR something had changed. There was no one at the gate and the departures board showed no gate number. The flight was late. The 12:40pm departure had been moved to 1:23pm. I went upstairs, had a single beer, watched, and waited. The departures board changed again requesting that passengers proceed (i.e., return) to the gates 46-47. I headed back to gates 46-47, boarded, and awaited whatever was to happen next. We did depart around 1:23pm and arrived only about twenty minutes late at LHR. But I knew that the connecting flight routine at LHR was cumbersome, with a long walk to a transfer bus, a transfer bus that crawled from the arrivals portion of T5 to the departures portion of T5, a logjam at security, where all bags were scanned once again, and then a hike to the departures hall to await announcement of the gate. As I reached the point in T5 where passengers seeking connections went in one direction and passengers headed for baggage and customs went in another direction – i.e., a “fork in the road” – I paused briefly and headed for baggage and customs. I had been considering this move ever since departing Venice. I refused the return flight to the US and opted to stay in the UK.

This last-minute decision permitted me to test the UK ETA I had acquired prior to departing the US – i.e., the new entry visa required of Americans entering the UK. At automated entry points at immigration, my passport would not scan and I was diverted to an immigration officer. He asked me a series of questions about the intentions of my stay, where I would be staying, and how often I had been in the UK in the last year. He then asked when I was departing and where I was going. I used my late June flight to Zurich as “answer” … He asked to see the booking. I started searching my luggage for a printout of the reservation but could not find it. As I did so, he gave up, stamped my passport, and waved me through. I was now in the UK without a return flight to the US. I would stay in London with friends for ten days or so and then decide where to go “next” … I was testing the exile plan.

That evening, I received an e-mail from a friend in NYC confirming that I could stay overnight upon arrival. The next morning, I received an e-mail from BA apologizing for the delay in the flight to JFK. There had been mechanical issues with the flight not taken. The e-mail did not indicate how long the delay had been, but it would only have added to the lateness of the arrival in Manhattan after landing at JFK. I could now, perhaps, claim through BA a voucher for a new LHR-JFK flight or a refund.

[…]

TO NW WALES

I stayed in Camberwell with friends for about a week and then headed for Northwest Wales, where I had often run off to in the past to escape London. The Avanti train from London Euston to Bangor was running late. It arrived in Bangor roughly 40 minutes late. This permitted me to make a delay refund claim on the Avanti website. If approved, I would receive [REDACTED] GBP back on the fare of [REDACTED] GBP. Once in Northwest Wales, I settled in to mowing and raking grass, pruning shrubs, and various other tasks associated with the sprawling, semi-wild property in Botwnnog. I had roughly two weeks to sort out where I would go next … I stepped outside the door on the evening of May 25 to smoke, gazing at the lawn I had just mowed and the grass I had just raked into rows and small mounds. I immediately thought of Novalis’ rhetorical question, “Where are we always going but home?” I instinctively pointed upward upon saying/thinking this, and a rainbow appeared, as if triggered by the gesture. A hare then hopped into the foreground and stopped midway on his journey to admire the rainbow and perhaps nibble the freshly cut grass. Strangely, the rainbow then doubled (a second, faint rainbow above the first). This was all in advance of the Gemini Full Moon due on Monday night, May 26, which I hoped and prayed would prompt signs that the exile plan was sustainable.

Image – Double Rainbow + Hare. Photo: Gavin Keeney.

Whatever signals I awaited would or would not be related to last submissions, all made before departing the USSA on May 8, plus any results of the various meetings in Ljubljana, Venice, and London between May 9 and May 23. I had attended something called the Humanities Summit at the School of Advanced Studies (SAS) at the University of London on May 22 to assess just what the SAS had in mind for remedying the crisis in the Arts and Humanities in the UK – i.e., the slow de-funding of the Arts and Humanities in favor of Science and Technology (STEM). Their answer was “collaboration.” During the lunch break, I went to the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS) to meet with an administrator concerning an open call for a forthcoming Research Fellowship at the IALS for 2025-2026. I asked a few “loaded” questions regarding the possibility of networking the fellowship project with other institutions in the UK and Europe. As the SAS Humanities Summit had emphasized collaboration across disciplines and across schools, I assumed it was a safe bet that the IALS would not be opposed to a networked project. As the fellowship was “non-stipendiary,” it would only work with other sources of funding anyway. I also asked if it was only for one year. I was told that it could be renewed if the IALS wished to carry on with it. But I was warned that they were “very picky.” This meant that they would most likely only want projects that fueled their own agenda and brought them the attention they sought through such fellowships. In asking if they would support a UK Global Talent Visa, I was told that they did not directly assist with visas, but that they would write a letter on behalf of the application. I had been studying that option for at least a year and coming up repeatedly against both the cost and the need for a “letter of collaboration.” It was the same line in the sand that existed in Slovenia regarding even making a visa application. Yet, if such letters could be secured, and a multilateral program through alliances could be established, some measure of hope might be in order.

On my way to the Humanities Summit on the morning of May 22, as I headed to the Senate House to find the venue, I ran into a couple of Marxists distributing leaflets outside of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), just next door to Birkbeck. We spoke for a while about their network of academics and activists and I realized that “revolution was in the air” again. The network was called The Internationalist Workers’ Club. They ran a food bank “in support of families at risk of food deprivation.” A second program involved “Internationalism Against Racism and Fear.” It was a campaign against “nationalism and the rearmament of Britain, Europe, and all other powers.” A key statement in the flyer for this program stated: “As communists, we counter fear with the spirit of May Day, a commitment to solidarity volunteering and the strengthening of internationalist positions in neighborhoods, workplaces, and among students.” For [REDACTED] GBP, as donation, I was given a copy of the Internationalism, Journal of Marxist Analysis, No. 75 (May 2025). If it was a monthly, they had been around for 6.25 years. The newspaper explained that “opposition to rearmament” concerned European and unitary imperialism – i.e., economic war. This journal was clearly the work of the academics involved in the greater network.

I went to Birkbeck to acquire a cup of coffee prior to the Humanities Summit at the Senate House. While buying the cappuccino, I recalled that I had one last copy of the EO1 protocols left after giving all of the other documents printed in Ljubljana away as I met with friends in Ljubljana and Venice. I decided now to give one document to a total stranger. It struck me that it might be appropriate since he had agreed with me in our initial engagement that academics “talked” revolution but rarely did anything about it. I headed back to the SOAS, handed him the document, and said, “Here’s my agenda. Kill copyright.” He nodded approval, and off I went in search of the Humanities Summit. I endured the morning session, went off to the IALS at noon or so for my pre-arranged meeting concerning the Research Fellowship, headed back to the Senate House, endured the first afternoon session, after catching the last bits of lunch on offer, and then walked away. The afternoon session involved networked, online tutorials for students in the Humanities. It opened with a long tale regarding the destruction of programs in the classics. The “Ideas Session” involved something called RESHAPED. The premise was that skills for studies in the Humanities were at risk and that an online school was the answer. This was also built upon the idea of collaboration, since the tutors involved could come from most anywhere and the students could supplement the plummeting resources of their home program in whatever university they attended. Yet, it left me feeling that the answers to the crisis were inadequate and that more remote learning would only exacerbate the problems. The session was meant to address the need for new models, but here was one of the models that was, in many respects, part of the process of the destruction of collegiality. The last session, which I skipped, was to discuss collaboration on the regional level, again an attempt to “pool” resources in a game of diminishing resources with an obvious trajectory known colloquially as “diminishing returns.” The problem of the ecosystem was never addressed, primarily because the UK educational model is still top-driven by research standards imposed by the government. How any of these remedies would ever lead to altering the ecosystem was a mystery.

I kept quiet through the morning session, lunch, and the first afternoon session. I had nothing to say to anyone that would have been of any use to them. The Humanities Summit had actually turned out to be a Humanities Black Hole.

[…]

OUTTAKES