#technopoems

[spamzineglasgow]

(SPAM Cuts) KICKING THE KAOS PAD - ENTERING INTO THE TECHNO-CHEMICAL DISORDER OF AGF-POEMPRODUCER

This week’s SPAM Cut features Max Parnell, looking at the transhumanist intimacies and techno aesthetics of self-proclaimed bass poetess, AFG Poemproducer’s new printed printed collection, Poemproducer, available now via paranoia publishing. 

writing in the electronic age. if emotions have cycles. some salmiakki pattern. i am gathering thoughts from every corner of this electronic planet.

> Antye Greie, stage name AFG Poemproducer, is an e-poetess, writer, curator, musician and performance artist known for her deconstruction of language through digital technology. Off the page, she converts her poetry into electronic music, digital media and sound installations in auditoriums, museums and theatres.

> Her first printed collection Poemproducer, published by paranoia publishing group ltd., includes 30 of her poems selected from her poem-newsletter, each one being randomly translated into one of five languages.

> Throughout these poems, there's a sort of anxiousness that permeates the chopped up, fragmented sentence structure, mirroring the glitchy, jolting style of AGF's music that wavers between rhythmic and arrhythmic. As readers, we're frequently fed assertions that dart at us as if from paranoid eyes;

terrorists can attack / security tends to be reactive terrorism is gang war / personal war / trapped

> It seems almost necessary to read these poems at a fast tempo, whereby we experience these warning words like flashes of a strobe light. Yet this anxious tone isn't consistently one of paranoia. On the contrary, the texts can be anxiously playful in their examination of what writing actually consists of:

I am enjoying the dance / authorship is not a feeling / it is work / revealing patterns / rhythms of people / the visible and audible / text is live / collected in / real time rooms / the ebb and flow of soundscapes

These examinatory passages crop up throughout the collection, often in the form of existential questions planted amongst the technological stream-of-consciousness flow. There's a sense of falling with each poem, of careering down the page, stumbling on every short burst of words that run into the next assertion. The narrative voice, often wavering between machine-like and personal, frequently addresses the reader, questioning 'what are we doing? / do we mean what we are / and are what we mean?' These unanswered questions work to help us make sense of the chaotic, obfuscating language breakdowns that characterise this collection.

> Perhaps the opening of 18, 'Subject: no harm can fall', most neatly encapsulates what it is like to read this collection:

you are now / entering the body of words / electrical dadada strict codes cracked by / bending borders --->

It is here we enter this 'fragile state', one in which the borders between human and machine start to cross over, echoing the transhumanist rhetoric of 'human but perfected', articulated in the prosthetic metaphor of 'the body: a space-helicopter'. Poem 22 illustrates this flirtation with the cyborg, asking us 'isn't breathing techno? / are we just recreating heartbeat? / looking for extended battery life?' As transhumanists look to loosen the borders between homo sapiens and technology, Poemproducer's overtly technological style bends the boundaries between automated speech and narrative voice. Throughout the collection, there's a sense of being intimately addressed, of being present in the poems with the author. Yet the playfulness comes in the subtle AI shades that permeate the speaker's tone, presenting AGF's notion of language as coding, as seen in 'Subject:mmmmmmmm', a poem consisting of single letters, symbols and numbers.  

> Nowhere does this merging of voice stand out more than in the small personal-yet-not-personal closing remarks that end almost every poem in the collection. These vary from the formal, 'with respect / yours AGF', to the warming 'with love from the woods / yours poetess' and even personal 'my dearest, i wish you an upmost powerful 2010!' The tone of the closing remarks fluctuates between impersonal computer automation and intimate speaker-listener interaction, perhaps an accurate way to describe the collection as a whole.

~

Text: Max Parnell

[theempathyofthegoldenone]

About 2 years ago, @bydhiyanah gave me the rare privilege of composing music to one of her poems. This is the finished work. It is one of the works that would be on the #Technopoems collection. Two tracks were released last year with #WendyLoh and #IdaJohan. I'm grateful to you guys. The tracks can be found on #itunes #Spotify and #googleplay as well. Take Aim Away From them #takeaimawayfromthem and the music behind it is tilted Bras in Alternate Universe. Photo Credit: @rubimahes #poetry #alternative #music #techno #poems (at Lagos, Nigeria)

[infoalien]

8 tracks // TECHNOGIPSY// by Turbolover

[shroomracoon]

Seelenficker/ Soulfucker

Seelenficker

I have always thought to myself,

If I take drugs, then they can fuck my body.

Then they could do with me what they want.

But in those moments,

when the drugs stop working,

I realised that they were also fucking my soul

Somehow, every time I take the drugs,

everything is horrible and heavenly at the same time.

I feel better on drugs than usual.

It would be nice if the world wasn’t the way it is.

It would be nice if you could close your eyes and

wish for something very hard, and it comes true.

I feel better on drugs than usual.

But in those moments,

when the drugs stop working,

I realised that they were also fucking my soul

There, where other people have the idea of love,

In me, there is a black hole. And this hole is getting fucked.

The drugs from above, the life from below.

It would be nice if the world wasn’t the way it is.

It would be nice if you could close your eyes and

wish for something very hard, and it comes true.

Crystals, sharp-edged crystals,  press through my veins.

It feels like the drugs are cutting me up inside

And when I stop using.

They’ll shred me to pieces.

I have always thought to myself,

If I take drugs, then they can fuck my body.

Then they could do with me what they want.

But in those moments,

when the drugs stop working,

I realise that they are also fucking my soul

Seelenficker

Seelenficker

This is a modified translation of the lyrics from the song Seelenficker by Klatschkind  

[technopoems]

Whirling

Whirling is a more proper form of time Spiral is more suitable to our movement

[infoalien]

ESPERANZA MACARENA

turbolover // NEW TRACK

beneffits for fight against the cancer

[theempathyofthegoldenone]

When I started this project #technopoems last year, I didn't expect the enormous support I received from the poets I contacted to submit their #poems for the poetry album. I have since been composing and arranging music to their poems and some of mine too. It is an ongoing process and I have decided to release the work in bits. Wendy was the first person to say yes. I'm eternally grateful. Download links will follow soon. Watch this space. #poetry #musicforpoetry #musiccomposition #iTunes #spotify #soundcloud

[theempathyofthegoldenone]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kafayat Motilewa Quadri (@dr.quadri_)

#Repost @ida_jj with @repostapp ・・・ Teaser for the newly released #technopoem 'Big' which I did with the talented @kafayatquadri. Listen and download it here, it's free!: (https://soundcloud.com/kafayatquadri/big-feat-ida-johan) and let us know what you think! #notyourusuallecturer #musicandpoetry #poetrydigestionhouse #poetry #poems #Malaysia #Nigeria

[infoalien]

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT >>

[technopoems]

Out

This is not only an expression of love but also an expansion Our guide for the future

Love is an exposure unveiling us You cannot resume your kiss

[technopoems]

No-

Beat is always an anticipation It is to put forward Our mind claims Faster, Further, Beyond But it is not quite like that It remains It sustains so that we move rather than go

Beat is to come back It is returning again and again It temporarily leaves and holds on to our bodies

Beat is to note It is telling us that we are not known to each other yet we are related With its looping it ties us

[technopoems]

Red/Gold and Black

Sounds of conflict disturbance and fatigue Reminders of the rough and superficial noise you would hear from a kitchen in the southeast Being packed in vehicles our lives are streamlined As our minds reiterate characters on billboards lose meanings becoming pure imagery Liquid sense Daydreams are accumulated and categorized with multicolour tape eventually dispatched to individual houses of atomic nuclei

Red in the indigenous tapestry colours the moon TV screen emits sporadic halts Our movement is machinic The roar stops short of music Entities soon to be at the table Chopsticks of boss-women beat the already trembling wooden floor We cite a lengthy complaint of neighbours having been thrown in our post box Our Time for supper Voices rise in resonance hovering and tuning with a rotating fan Police-women knock on our door without keys The life of glasshouse

There is no break-in No exodus The time turns to inner Space Our food becomes the component for another body Synchronising. The moon sends a golden ring The after effects slash the flat or the Real Partially external Our Time for bed Incognito. The women were the first to jump on the ground The magnetic field Hollowed horizon Expansion.

[theempathyofthegoldenone]

Just one of those days. They are not many. Have you listened to #takeitslow by #kafayatquadri on #soundcloud? That's what's up now. Don't be left behind. It's my new single. #Lagos #Nigeria #poetry #spokensoul #lovepoem #technopoem

[technopoems]

The final

The feeling the end is coming Expecting dissolution Cut of time Fall Afterglow All supposed to be unknown Outside of this sphere

[technopoems]

Pre

I want to enter her brain, capturing a pre-emerging rhythm, an un-formed aggregate, an embryo of pleasure, the sense untranslated

[technopoems]

Mono-Multi

Knocking down the wall Cracking the eggs It’s possible to Get out of the shell While being embraced

Civilization meets extraterrestrial beings The alert, laughter, roar are from One with many facets