You land in Malaga. You go to your place (train, bus, Uber, taxi). Push the code to open the building door. Push the code to get the key to your apartment. AI is with you. Under your balcony, hundreds of young men (and some women) train for the Semana Santa processions. They train with empty “thrones” on their shoulders, but when the processions take place, they will carry heavy sculptures of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary through the streets. Queues of tourists to the Picasso Museum cannot compete with the queues of the faithful locals to the churches, where the sculptures are exposed, and money for the event is collected.
Meanwhile, on March 8th, on International Women’s Day, according to the communist calendar promoted by UNESCO at the expense of the religious traditions and rituals, feminists gather on a square in the center of the city of Malaga. They carry home-made placards and flags and form a march asking to count them among the “anti-fascists” and to respect their “yes” or their “no” whenever it matters.
Noticing the sculpture of Federico García Lorca in a trendy cafe near the cathedral, I wonder whether Franco executed him in Ronda because the poet sided with the Republicans, or because he was a homosexual, or just because he liked anarchism more than any other doctrine. Civil wars never die, and they do not fade away, either.
Migrants and settlers, tourists and refugees, teachers and students, the managers and the managed, people on the move – move. Fleets of airplanes, ships, trains, trucks, and jeeps move them in space. Better than their feet. Their senses are enhanced. Their sensibilities are trained. Their communications are multiplied. Their sense-making projects move them through time. They feel, think, and imagine more quickly than ever before. They? Us. We. Can we compare progress to a more lively experience stored in individual biographies, authenticated by the first-hand and the first brain impressions/expressions, relations/relays? Can we measure progress in the creative flights of imagination? In the explosions of creativity that expand our imagined and experienced events? Situations? Flows? Interrelations? Hopes?
Haarlem, March 16, 2026