Review of the book “I think Banksy is you” by Remate

“I think Banksy is you”the second book of the musician Auctionafter his book of stories “I use to be” (Editorial Pajaro, 14), is a brief kind of postmodern operetta, in the sense that it combines comic strips with music (here not in the form of dance, however, but described in detail, and not only fulfilling an atmospheric function but a leading role ). Thus, it is a kind of great show, but in a small, modest format. Since the comics take place at the level of the psyche and what is shown to us combines a multiple perspective, a symbiosis of objectivist will with something dreamlike, symbolist and with moments of pure metaphysical or futuristic fantasy.

Who guides us through the different stories is a narrator in the first person, but who oscillates between the singular and the plural and who is not afraid to delve into the depths of the minds of the characters he shows us, significantly digging into the game of suggestions , performing different types of ekphrasis. The narrator acts as a lens and telephoto lens of a reality that is suddenly strongly realistic, and we are shown in the manner of dogma cinema, as it wades towards magical realism or drifts towards pure symphonic and (almost almost) surreal fantasy, although, often in archetypal terms or lost in scientific diatribes. In this regard, the presence of the artist known as Banksy, who enters and leaves the scenes, but whose role is merely accidental, should be noted; he appears as if it were a perceptual error. And when he participates in the scene he is in an almost unpremeditated way, in spite of himself, with an almost ethereal chance.

“I think Banksy is you” It is a kind of chaotic and anarchic total series (in the sense that it encompasses all the arts) divided into ten episodes, these in turn divided into different scenes (normally between one and four, although there is a longer episode, with eight scenes ; the first, entitled “Miranda July”). It should be noted that each episode revolves around a character, real or invented (Miranda July, Maribel, Sannah, Xavier Dolan, David Attenborough, Dolly Parton, The Rabbit, Nagomi Neagari, The Owl, Aviva). Likewise, it is also worth highlighting two crucial moments in the book that give a triple dimension to the narrative: the one in which we see the scene through the eyes of Banksy (episode two) and another in which a metafictional moment occurs in which the characters of the series discover the narrator (which here can only be the great eye of God: the eye of the camera, but an eye of God with a trick, since things will happen to him that he does not know, has forgotten or wants to blindly hide from us), evidencing the fictional construct (this happens in episode nine) and causing total silence (the narrator identifies himself as a musician, so it is not unreasonable to think of the Remate himself -although no indication in the text gives a definite clue to this inference-).

“I think Banksy is you” It is a synesthetic festival that takes place in an elastic time and in which the figure of Banksy is presented to us as a paradigm of contemporaneity: an everyman, a star, a fake, a criminal or none of the above. Hence, yes, it may be you, the one who pulls the strings behind the camera or the one who hides in the shadows, but seeks to be discovered, who chases fame or shuns it. Empty of meaning, as we said, Banksy can be everything. And he is omnipresent. And deep down, he’s never there. That is why he is a symbol. a fetish That’s why Banksy is you, but so am I.