As an initial step in curating the 1st Athens Biennial 2007, Destroy Athens, this appropriation of excerpts is intended to form an open narrative. At the same time, it is a conceptual toolbox; a treasure hive; or a book of spells. It is to be read as a series of suggestions that imply different - even contradictory - possibilities at every turn, and that embrace - even reluctantly - the difficulty one might face when attempting to support or further alternatives. Composed around the metaphorical, ahistorical, timeless topos of Athens, this jagged rhythm of ideas and ambiences is a guide to nowhere: if there is, in the end, any sense of coherence in this open narrative, it is solely that which the soul finds in the moment of reaction, where certainty I exists only as a lack of projection, where experience is absorbed with a total disregard towards either the conditions that have spawned it or the consequences which it might have. Shamelessly shaped by both attested pasts and proposed futures, this narrative was conceived as a reflection of a nebulous present. XYZ Athens, September 2006