All vomit, even that returned by the sweetest of dishes, is always sour. Who says the story can't be told a different way? Who says Snow White can't be an old crone in a vegetative coma, still waiting for the kiss that will awaken her from the eternal sleep? Who says the seven dwarfs were bullfighters? Who says Prince Charming can't spend his time whoring? How do we know Narcissus didn't get so fed up of staring at himself that he died from an overdose of heroin? Who says Pinocchio didn't get an erection every time he told a lie, and shagged some primitive Barbie doll? Who says the Enchanted Woods were 'cruising park' where gays and prostitutes had sex between the bushes? Who says the end is always happy?

In our times, who can pay much attention to the massacre of the innocence? The innocents of yesterday are sending the bombs of today, these supreme gifts of helplessness, infamy and failure. There is an East of the innocence, like there is a West of the innocents. As I am living in Romania - the state and paideuma of innocence in its unbalanced, unhappy and dumb form - I imagined the "stranger", with his "strangeness", was something - something else (together with his alter). Far from the truth. We are all false, disintegrated, miserable, and lacking innocence. Lacking interest. Civilization doesn't mean the steam engine, but it means civility, the ability to have civic relationships, to follow judicial norms. Somehow, all these attributes are lost. We have forgotten our civility; we lost our civilization. We have become innocent vacuum cleaners and we are sucking in ignorance, pain, ardour, hatred, show. Nowadays it is easier to kill one thousand people than say "Have a good day"

Why do we reproduce (ourselves)? Is it for our personal pleasure (the pre-Christian hedonism) or from the wish to perpetuate the species (post-Christianity)?

Carlos Aires was born in Spain, in 1974. Aires has a MA in photography at The Ohio State University, Ohio, USA and a PhD in Arts at Faculty of Fine Art Alonso Cano of Granada in Spain. Lives and works in Antwerpen (Belgium) and Malaga (Spain). He exhibited at Manifesta; HISK, Antwerpen; Kunsthaus, Graz; Arteleku, San Sebastian; Prague Biennale; Museo de las Artes, Mexico; Lyon Biennale; ADN, Barcelona, etc.

Eugen Radescu (b. 1978) is politologist (specialized in moral relativism and political ethics), cultural manager, curator and theoretician. He writes for various magazines and newspapers. He curated Bucharest Biennale 1 with the theme "Identity Factories". He is co-editor of Pavilion magazine and co-director of Bucharest Biennale (with Razvan Ion) and the chairman of the organizational board of Pavilion and Bucharest Biennale. He lectured at Art Academy - Timisoara, La Casa Encedida - Madrid, Calouste Gulbenkian - Lisbon, Apex Art - New York, etc. He recently return from a residency at Apex - New York and published the book "How Innocent is That?" at Revolver Publishing - Berlin. He is presently working on a new book on moral relativism. Lives and works in Bucharest.

Image: Carlos Aires in the residency studio, Frans Masereel Centre, Kasterlee, Belgium. Courtesy of the artist.