XAVIER SERRANO (1)

Zswounderground 
(Extracting Buried Meaning Since Aug 08)


About the Zswounderground Blog Project:
INTRODUCTION 
The Introductory note on the site reads as follows: 
«These mines, tunnels, pits and shafts are regularly being extended. If you need some light while excavating, please contact us and we will provide you with some instructions. But remember that everything here is happening below the surface. If you get lost, get lost.» 
=> This is a blog WITHOUT any posts on the home page; 
=> ONLY COMMENTS are inserted ; 
=> ALL posts are left blank (or may contain an error message) ; 
=> Everyting is taking place BENEATH the surface, is hidden from sight, and potential content has to be unearthed (that is to be discovered from the “Comments” area).  

INTENTION 
Meaning/mining: The blog is built upon the metaphor of mining.  The explorer has to dig his/her way to light, content and meaning (if any).  But the site of course is full of traps and dead-ends. 
**First of all, I was interested in undermining communication and the very act of blogging. At first sight (and as we say somewhere "sight is under destruction"), there is nothing to see on the HOME-page (we call it the HOLE-page).  No feeds, no notes, no dates.  The only way to enter is to fall through the HOLE-page. In the absence of any white rabbit, the digger is free to find his/her own gems or get lost. Secondly I wanted to disrupt the nature and content of “Comments”. Usually “comments” are focused on praise, criticism, comparison, spam, promotion / self-promotion, etc. Instead, I wanted to create some confusion and play on bizarre interactions, disconnected reactions, nonsense, etc. 

DESCRIPTION 
Some kind of borgesian maze is thus created with internal loops (within the mine) or external drills (towards other sites or networks).

While the posts on Zswounderground are devoid of content, there are some titled posts.  Per the projecs concept, most of the action occurs in the Comments section.  For example, there is a textless post entitled "Collapsing spaces."  When you go to the comments section, there is this comment:

Zswlkr said...

1. Hand written melancholy
2. Dreamscape formation after working hours
3. Boxin[g]Love
4. Screening obsessions
5. Dalinian virgin auto-submitted to her own pain
6. Kinematic frontier
7. Mutilated erection
8. Distance between two crashing planes
9. Defeated body
10. Escape

Note that No. 10, "Escape," is a link.  Click on link and you will end up at a YouTUBE video by donnasummerschool of "Bubonic Plague - Dracula."  

Xavier says, "Many posts lead nowhere. Some, on the contrary may lead to the comments zone through which you can get to other posts or other comments. But the overall themes being darkness, emptiness and loss, you never go far and return to what I call the 'hole-page'."

The "hole-page," of course, is the original empty post on Zswounderground.

CONCLUSION 
Zswounderground is a blog which refuses to make things easy for the reader. On Zswounderground, readers will spend either 0 seconds or several hours. Zswounderground is one of the many projects from Zswound (http://zswound.blogspot.fr/p/about.html).

Xavier is the author of several books of fiction and poetry published in France and Canada. His work has been featured in a number of international magazines and webzines. He is interested in alternative, experimental and authorless writing. He is also the editor of a small but funny magazine.

(Author photo is a screenshot from Zswounderground.)