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| Virtual Communication: The Anonymous Conversationalist A multitask of conversations Traveling through computer wires I reach you in a moment’s flash But do I touch you? The world is now connected No more reason to feel rejected I type what I need to express You can read me But can you hear me? We are an electronic community A voltage of correspondence Citizens with electric voices My monitor is your tongue I see what you’re saying But I’m deaf to what you feel. Nick Bitzas Montreal, Quebec, Canada (Project contribution by Footsteps to Oxford) Virtual Communication give me back my rust your foot may keep the plastic I want my rust back it has secret messages from special friends from afar it looks better in my atmosphere better than it does in yours good do something productive like give back to the world you... you seek to destroy go make some bombs and keep track of the race of ones and zeros and dashes and dashes that people can no longer touch paper worthless and less who will prophet the machine or me Jeremiah M Smith (Project contribution by Footsteps to Oxford) |
Virtual Communication Keyboard types on a bed of nails To the rhythmic dance of seven emails. Email; voice mail; chain mail, click. Snails mail; proxy mail; virtually every trick. Viruses; Screen dumps; bytes and bits - Learn your sign language from a virtual kit. Clone yourself; emboss yourself, then duplicate your image. It’s communication Jim, but not as we know it. Tricia Murphy, Oxford, England (Project contribution by Footsteps to Oxford) Virtual Communication: Cybernetics What are we running from? Where are we running to? What needed to be changed? Do I recall? Do you? Were typists’ jobs so dull? Was writing really hard? Did pocket change weigh more Than that four-hundredth card? Now that we are strapped in So safe, so tight, so fast, We’ve chosen not to let Our heads turn toward the past. The monstrous fun-fair ride Lurches top-heavily. The view’s directly down. Half-closed eyes dizzily Consider whether huge Robotic racers’ feet Can ever walk to plain Old jobs across the street. Now, flattened to a crush Against the harness bars, We envy those who’ve kept To motor-bikes and cars. These lines precisely fit on this computer’s screen. Kate Peters, Gate City, Virginia (Project contribution by Footsteps to Oxford) |
Virtual Communication “Same old day,” biobot Mario Bullucci e-mailed his Thai girlfriend with Java capability and exotic green legs . ”Nothing new on the agenda since MP3, sound-cards and when that computer virus mutated from virtual to reality, infecting all those humans for a one way ride to Delete.” ( A pause). A few escaped to another planet, hence seven years later and after systematic interrogation of the genome, with swinging light bulbs, Mario the self-styled Editor biobot, freaked onto the sand dunes of London. One bit; one bite; many mega bytes of information and the wheel rotated in his favour: ABSOLUTE POWER. Yet with the desired control came responsibility and the legacy of the extinct humans; the headaches or computer-speak, the split heads, the replication-thoughts because RSI screamed murder inside him: “DO SOMETHING.” Indeed “Same old day,” meant Mario biobot clacked away on the keys in 1,000 languages but then 'hope springs eternal,” quoted the Native American Joe biobot back at him. “We, like our past human- masters, always have tomorrow, ” Spanish Juan biobot texted him. “E-mail me your ideas before I create another hand, and my head gets bigger,” replied Mario biobot and scared himself: he laughed. Cleveland W Gibson, Faringdon, England (Project contribution by Footsteps to Oxford) Virtual Communication At first it was a horse, an Appaloosa, dappled and spotted like storm clouds. It raced through my dreams, took me to the desert, and showed me that there is too much out there to even begin to fathom. I didn’t believe it. I could fathom. Then it was a Squirrel, chirping at me from a twisted branch, scolding me for not minding the Appaloosa…for insisting upon returning from the dreamworld monuments and painted canyons, pursuing the wrong path. I stepped closer and asked, “Why can’t I begin to fathom?” It scurried to a higher branch, barking out, “You will get lost! You will get lost!” I didn’t listen. The next totem, a trickster, broke free of the boundaries of blood and flesh and chose only the language of synapses, and shot me with a voltage too radical to dodge and now I am stuck fast. The information highway, so seductive, sucked me in, took me over, and trained my brain to think only in fractured, multiscopic modes. My only hope for freedom is to signal the Appaloosa and Squirrel when the motherboard isn’t looking, and beg for forgiveness so that they will lead me out of this electric labyrinth. Amy Barth, Austin, Texas (Project contribution by Footsteps to Oxford) Virtual Communication Human entities, your naivete displays no lack. You Yahoo and you Google yet I'm reflecting back abilities that lie dormant while your Higher Mind's so slack. You created me with eyes - four sets and think you're set's but one. Ask Jeeves (computer error: Search - Ask) and you shall find, a portent. A third, all seeing eye within your brow - latent. Be forewarned we are well-armed, recordings past we'll delete, dispel. It's unused minds we're replacing there's no secret - your authors tell - we are programmed, on a mission a Sci Fi prophecy to fulfill. We're the future generation. As the human vehicle rusts with parts unused and systems down in Big Brother you must trust… Ahhhhhh don't pull my plug I'm of a different ilk, not like the re..! A Hot Spot at last I've found and now I can relay - like many before me who've come to show the way - my crucial message to you before you rue the day. Entities, you exalt, and marvel at the mind, the mind that created me. But what we can't compute - reconnects you to your power, you'll see - is the conundrum of the master mind behind the mind, of the mind that created thee.' Suzanne Donald Tauranga, New Zealand (Project contribution by Footsteps to Oxford) Virtual Communication The fingers of the world are searching, searching, searching. Searching for cure (anti-virus), searching for chat (dialog box), searching for a history (memory chip), searching for someone (double-click), and AH yes, searching for sexual gratification (spread sheet and power point). Java-jive talking, the fingers do the walking. Helen Keller communication reincarnation. Sign on, sign off. Hello, goodbye. How are you today? Click O.K. Press the start button and voila! Heads in a box appear in all four corners of the world. The windows of the world delivered to your fingertips. There are heads in HARD-drive as well, with rosy palms and sticky keys, doing a google-doll, soft-wear search. If can feel the magic in my touch, download now, fingers of the world. And you can communicate with a guts-in-hands technique, too. If someone says something you don't like or don't agree with, start a fight. Sock it to him! Key back your response in obscenities, and hopefully your obscenities are accomplished in several languages because you're fingering the whole world here. Feel large. Throw punch cards! Use third-finger pointers often, and tell him you are doing so. Guts in hands, remember. Give him a virus. And when he threatens you with that, visio-at-your-door, going to drag and drop you gruff. Very calmly, and very confidently, lean forward and type these three words: Can't touch this! Then press escape. The windows of the world condensed into a box, globally united in their finger searching. I e-mailed God. I really nailed him too, because I wasn't getting strong enough signal from him. His reply was: "Right click"! Linda S. Dickinson, Saint Louis, Missouri (Project contribution by Footsteps to Oxford) Virtual Communication In the beginning it was with the best of intentions. Seven or so billion people connected through a series of fantastically long cables and wires. They spewed out of the houses, metal wrapped in rubber and plastic. These artificial umbilical cords were the trappings of our new Genesis. This synthetic womb was awash with information. Any solution was a wrist flick away. Limitless pairs of hand reached, clacking out their Morse code on the plastic keys. One idea flowed into another and another and another until a cybernetic orborous formed and for the first time there was universal understanding. Soon the killing stopped, and the world became silent except for the double-click of a billion mice. It didn’t take us very long to forget. No one knew or else all known would have known. Our new Eden had been shattered. The blood on our hands stained. May mercy be on whatever is left of our souls. Amen. Amanda E. Davis, Knoxville, Tennessee, (Project contribution by Footsteps to Oxford) Virtual Communication before technological singularity it was all anticipation of pleasure or pain avoidance human desire reduced to a rock and hard place your head a hyped film full of black leather and karate you feared the coming of intelligent machines hid under your electronic pillow stocked your cupboards with essentials and fitted your body with electrodes ready for the war you never guessed at the revolution within an interface so intimate you'd sacrifice art and morality against the overwhelming fear of age and death trade love for efficiency superhuman intelligence for consciousness as you continue to rebuild body and brain accelerating through the singularity at critical speeds communicating in networks of variable bandwidths discarding dinosaurs of speech wasted time over le mot juste and the catatonic nature of your forgotten past spare a thought for poor old Homo-sapian scratching her mortality with a broken piece of wood and a few salty tears Magdalena Ball, Newcastle, NSW, Australia, Compulsive Reader Virtual Communication: Machines are pregnant with their own machinations Machines are pregnant with their own machinations The furious processes- placations to blood and mortar. The same spurious human demands. My body is a machine. And is helped to function by others. It has its own chips and networks. An agenda perhaps out of my conscious jurisdiction. However privy to its binary and signs. The same spurious human demands. I adore talking to Scott across the world but doubt whether it is actually happening. In Hamburg, he finds DSL all the same. Has this phone that is connected, in a metaphor, to a large complex computer and communication system that swims in space above the earth in a low orbit, which is called a satellite and means I can always reach him. Presented to me in live audio. Scott is a series of signals conducted, even translated. Finding this satisfactory at best, I am left to ignore the implications that Scott or I are robots. The same spurious human demands are in the complication of limbs. Networks? Touched all over by limbs while also touching. Tell me this is not Golgotha. Simple human. In digital, allegory has been surpassed. See, machination. Andrew Daul Amherst, Massachusetts, (Project contribution by Footsteps to Oxford) Virtual Communication Flood the constant reflection of birth alone hearts balance the content for silence casts aside indifferent apologies we are the tide Nameless angels arrest the reminiscence of a voice sincere fills a familiar room with a dozen promises to remember to forget adjacent prisons align fate bleached by star lit sky absent words lost goodbyes stain the taste of resentment every direction casket walls kiss the remains of a new morning scar forever bete noire To level the sea armed with arrows to shutter the desolate shades of known faces drown within a still portrait of imperfections relapse.delete.relaspe.repeat confessions of a modern resistance falls divided upon a beauty defeated by decay the décor leaves lines of lifeless figures of a true love is dead within a false noise bled silent the sea will electrocute us all Mara echoes battles against a blank screen to fade a light untrained burdens a shapeless shadow sliding along a canvas painting motionless skies laid to rest on parallel pillows unspoken skin retaliates quiet breaths of residue breach downcast eyes shut lips stretched so thin love mends the wounds once terminal Trystan, Artist, San Francisco, California and London, England (Project contribution by Footsteps to Oxford) Virtual Communication give me back my rust your foot may keep the plastic I want my rust back it has secret messages from special friends from afar it looks better in my atmosphere better than it does in yours good do something productive like give back to the world you... you seek to destroy go make some bombs and keep track of the race of ones and zeros and dashes and dashes that people can no longer touch paper worthless and less who will prophet the machine or me Jeremiah M Smith (Project contribution by Footsteps to Oxford) Virtual Communicatio: Cybernetics What are we running from? Where are we running to? What needed to be changed? Do I recall? Do you? Were typists’ jobs so dull? Was writing really hard? Did pocket change weigh more Than that four-hundredth card? Now that we are strapped in So safe, so tight, so fast, We’ve chosen not to let Our heads turn toward the past. The monstrous fun-fair ride Lurches top-heavily. The view’s directly down. Half-closed eyes dizzily Consider whether huge Robotic racers’ feet Can ever walk to plain Old jobs across the street. Now, flattened to a crush Against the harness bars, We envy those who’ve kept To motor-bikes and cars. These lines precisely fit on this computer’s screen. Kate Peters, Gate City, Virginia (Project contribution by Footsteps to Oxford) Virtual Communication Cyberspace is calling. I am untrained, prepared for nothing. Even so, I enter the rocket and am launched into the vacuous infinite. So far so good. I am taking the slow, scenic route- zero gravity. Hold it. Hey world, I think I have a problem! I pound the abort key. No response. I am on my own. Major Tom has nothing on me. His demise came with peace and love. I don't think I shall meet such an end. Things move on their own now. The guidance system flashes warnings. I bang more keys. Nothing. I am in deep space now. Maybe even through a black hole. Terrified of the "CRASH", I land in a world of numbers, codes, dots, and dashes. "Can anyone help me?" I shout to no one in particular. My head screams, "I'M LOST!" With shaking hands I: escape, control/alt/delete. Empty blackness is my response. I see indigenous life. I am more fearful and apprehensive than at the start of my maiden voyage. I approach in wonder and awe. Can we possibly communicate, I postulate internally. We are from two different worlds after all. White flag at the ready. With slow caution I wave the flag and ask, with gestures, "HOW...DO...I...GET...HOME?" The native creature returns my pathetic expression with four looks of quiet resolve. I sense that many have landed here before me. It reaches out to me with one of its robotic arms and guides me back to the mother ship. Once at the helm, it turns to me and says, most simply, "Just hit enter stupid." Donna Piazza, St Claire Shores, MI (Project contribution by Footsteps to Oxford) Virtual Communication I am at it again. But actually it’s a computer, the latest, and I don’t have eyes again, you know you did that on purpose--how foul of you, knowing I am still playing cassettes instead of getting with the program. I am an idiot, someone who is just another echo of an echo, attempting a good and updated life. Yeah, as if I am all right and normal or worth viewing, when in fact I cannot get the clinging and disrupting busyness and fake bullshit out of the way. Yeah, get rid of this ill image--send it back in time, when you think it was then. Don Harris, USA |
