Jonathan Ball. Ex Machina. BookThug, 2009.
Like Cortázar’s Hopscotch, each section is numbered and, unlike the novel, each line offers a path to read on, a sort of hyperlink in print.
[50]
The poem is not written by machines. [36]
It is the root, the cause of machines. [17]
As the book does not birth the poem, but is its vessel in the world. [15]
Clothing the Word in flesh, so that it might finally die. [63]
One can with diligence assemble a poem out of the references.
| The poem is not written by machines. | [36]
The machine spawns new machines. [05] Improvements are necessary. Conceived and carried. [40] (while in secret new machines produce new needs) [11] (offering themselves to answer to the problems they pose) [41] |
| It is the root, the cause of machines. | [17]
The machine that will never think. [04] The machine we believe will never think. [26] The machine that, thinking, chooses, suicide. [37] |
| As the book does not birth the poem, but is its vessel in the world. | [15]
“Physiologically, man in the normal use of technology […] is perpetually modified by it and in turn finds ever new ways of modifying his technology.” [34] “Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and to evolve ever new forms.” [27] “The machine world reciprocates man’s love by expediting his wishes and desires, namely, in providing him with wealth.” [26] Steel and your warming sex. [62] |
| Clothing the Word in flesh, so that it might finally die. | [63]
My spine is broken. [01] My ribs are splayed open like wings. [64] |
And if one continues the resulting fan reduces the initial set of lines to a point. That’s the point.
And so for day 1740
18.09.2011