Nowhere

Music and memory are directly connected according to science. Because emotions enhance memory processes and music evokes strong emotions, music is involved in forming memories, either about pieces of music or about episodes and information associated with particular songs. As pop music has never ceased to be directly connected to the queer culture and narrative - whether through divas or the rise of house and disco music on gay and black dance floors in the 70s -, the LGBTQIA+ community tends to have in its imagination and in its memory an even stronger connection with electronic music. That’s where we often drop our sorrows, achievements, dreams, and memories; and it’s through its looped structure and repetition that we are guided into some kind of state of mind similar to the effect of psychotropic drugs.

Similarly, certain places also refer us to specific moments and help shape our identities and our realities. The architecture of houses and streets contains the experience of those who built them, as well as their world. The design of the cities must be read through whoever lives there and then when erased, it directly affects their surroundings and their community, including their psyche and their memory. When a place where gay men meet each other dies, for instance, a part of their identity is also fading away.

Whether in pop music or cruising areas, gay men's sense of freedom is always found in a melancholic interlude between dreams and illusion, as if they were in a constant search for affection in a totally isolated space. Recent studies show how more rights and representation, unfortunately, did not lower the rates of anxiety and loneliness in this community. We still feel lonely and unfulfilled, as if we were nowhere, surrounded by a dark blue feeling, listening to our favorite song without being able to dance.

This essay-film is my own personal way of thinking about it through an electropop 90s hit song, the story of a doorless alley, and the color blue.