On the outskirts of one of the Milky Way’s
spiral arms, massively parallel POWER7
processors shaped a silhouette and everyone
knows what happens next: you couldn’t get
into modelling so got a job collecting urine
for algorithms. Now I know what it felt like
when fences put shepherds out of business.Across the fuss, a corridor rolls onto another
corridor, then onto the freeway. Bundles of
selfish energies populate this fictional bit-
map, plain men in plain suits, plain men with
selfish centres driving biblical machines in
seemingly unstoppable motion. We have
spare fear stashed at the next stop, they say.Once the data was released, we were angry
at the boggle of decimal excess, the worlds
wrought in cabling, the best red velvet cake
possible from all permutations. Our ghosting
awareness training alerted us to his thin white
skin, tanned flat as an icon. The Quran says
that a spider’s web makes the frailest home.Elsewhere (not at all plain build), the name-
less 3.6 billion looked for food but found warm,
salted coral. Heat becomes bone, marrow, meds.
Where am I placed in this congested race into the
unknown unknown? Underneath this anatomy
there’s a jaded old avatar weighed down with
each pulse of unfunded cosmic consciousness.Erotic robots have already sniffed which way
the wind is blowing, old fashioned pattern
recognition won’t cut it anymore and the
next lubricant shortage could see them back
in the fields picking strawberries. Thankfully,
aesthetic sensibility is not essential. Farming
and gardening are not the same as astronomy.Alternative Facts, Bad Luck and Bad Timing
left us with an Amateur Hour Adobe After
Effects background and the sound of women
cradling babies in the ruins of a city in the Middle
East. Mostly there are too many pulses to process,
too much acid-wash rhetoric, not even my grooming
accessory can make up for the absence of poetry.
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones