Scrape at First Site by Chris Henschke, Oct 2001



It's easy to talk as if mere words

didn't hold understanding like a sieve,

easy to succumb to binaries in a digital age.

Some things sneak underneath the radar,

work not as statement but suggestion,

more virus than decisive attack.

In this constructed space, ancient and modern

technologies both tune in to the anarchic swell.

Timelines collapse. Take these two

antique turntables hooked up to a computer –

clutch plates, clock faces, sander sheets, all take the place

of retro vinyl; corroded grooves in both senses.

You sniff around with your fingers, curious

how natural all this electricity feels.

This is playground and jungle.

Even your cautious footsteps click samples

that rush to surround you.

This is chaos within your reach.

These mechanical dinosaurs whirr out the score

for the old old static, the white-noise watertable

lapping under the city, these unutterable words

made sound now, made flesh, hint at buildings

in a slow shift, grinding against each other, massive

illformed teeth. Is this the soul of the machine

or the machinery of the human soul, the hushed

resonance of existence turned up to eleven?

They scrape and whine as you trace tangled grey wires,

push buttons and grab handles, think 'Can I touch this?

Is this interactive?' & wonder if the metal boxes are watching

your response. Supposedly it's either art or entertainment;

from a distance they'll ask what it means. But here

you will huddle over a screen just as obsolete as that

fat bakerlight radio, trawl in the scream in the air,

and snap back to the background slander,

'Do you think you can know anything

outside full immersion?'