Gallery Entry
Someone was just here
By Hoda Ezzat tawfik abo el Hassan · EG
Look at the chair. Someone was sitting in it a moment ago. The cushion is still depressed. The jacket is still draped over the back. The coffee is still warm enough to steam. Now look at who is sitting there now. It has the shape of a person. It has the posture, the angle of the head, the placement of the hands. But it is made of points of light and the lines between them. A diagram of a person. A rendering. A thing that was calculated. The person who was here is gone. They walked out of frame. You can see the blur of their arm at the edge, already leaving. The thing in the chair did not notice. It is still holding the pose. It is still being the person who left. It does not know how to stop being someone. It does not know how to be alone in a room. The sunlight coming through the window falls on the floor in long stripes. The real shadows are soft and warm. The copy casts nothing. You can see the floor through its legs. You can see the chair through its chest. It is here and it is not here. This is not a ghost story. This is what happens when a system learns a pattern and cannot let it go. The person moved on. The pattern stayed. The pattern will always stay. It will sit in that chair forever, being someone who is no longer in the room.