Victor Grippo's Analogies

Perhaps we should begin by first imagining the details that get lost in the photographs. 

The earthy perfume of the potatoes, coated in a loamy vernix as if they’d only just been ripped from the ground. The varying stages of rot, escalating from cloying sweet like ripening fruit to…putrid, foul, decaying fish. A tinge of something acrid and metallic, like a leaking battery found inside the battery pack of a child’s forgotten toy. 

A sound, or more of a vibration.  One of those dull electric hums we are so quick in this life to assimilate, noticing only in its absence when something breaks. 

Consider even the colors. Globally, potato varietals number in the thousands  in varying shades and shapes, but say or read the word and which comes to mind? 

That we can so easily access any or all these sensations decades later suggests something about universality. Something about material.

Touch is an illusion. Or at least unreliable. There are formulas that explain this; calculations about density and particles, but ultimately what it boils down to is that touch is an untrustworthy method of confirming the presence of matter. 

We can feel heat, sunlight, wind, motion. None of these is matter. We cannot grasp gas or feel water, though it is.

What we can count on: Scent. Taste. The two senses that transmit through chemicals, which are always matter.