Poetry installation: Untitled ("my friend always chooses the media")

by borth

Summary:

This unlicensed installation is written in marker paint on the third stall in the leeward atrium restroom of the Landfall City Cultural Stadium (LCCS), and covers most of the stall’s interior walls. It is under consideration as a Protected Heritage Site. Viewing is currently by arrangement with the Landfall City Walking Tour.

Notes:

Poetry installation: Untitled ("My friend always chooses the media")
This installation is written in marker paint on the third stall in the leeward atrium restroom of the Landfall City Cultural Stadium (LCCS). It covers most of the stall’s interior walls.
The text of the installation is a poem known as Untitled ("my friend always chooses the media"). The poem was originally written in machine language and uploaded by the anonymous author to a Preservation Station feed frequented by bots. The Preservation Standard Orthography edition used in the LCCS installation was translated by bot/human linguist expert TheJoysOfFrisson (with permission from the author) for inclusion in the Preservation Bot National Justice Society documentary serial episode “Branching Networks.” The original machine-language text had a repeating-parameter style; for the PSO translation TheJoysOfFrisson chose the sestina which also features a rigid iterative pattern. Frisson’s sestina takes some liberties with the structure, such as relaxing the pattern in the closing envoi.
Curiously, the installation was painted several cycles before the publication of “Branching Networks” made the PSO translation available to the general population, raising questions about the identity of the artist.
NOTE: This unlicensed installation is under consideration as a Protected Heritage Site. Viewing is currently by arrangement with the Landfall City Walking Tour.

My friend always chooses the media
for us to view when we’re together.
My friend picks the most unrealistic
shows, with impossible plots and worlds
where constructs’ faces aren't shown
and bots can be best friends with humans.

I said “humans.” My friend says “humans
and augmented humans.” Though the media
makes no distinction, my friend’s face shows
surprise as thick brows knit together.
“Augments and implants are like separate worlds.
Treat them the same? That's not realistic.”

Well, friend. Maybe I’m not realistic.
With ships and cities and stations the humans
gird us all in their constructed worlds—
armored in alloys, linked through media.
We watch another episode together.
I imagine we're characters on the show.

When constructs have feelings on the shows,
reconciling their conflicting halves, it’s never realistic.
My friend says constructs are joined together
into something neither bot nor human.
I think my friend is as wrong as the media:
not neithers nor halves, we live in doubled worlds.

There's a series about visiting alternate worlds.
We don’t watch it often. I think this show
isn’t my friend’s most favorite media,
though its strange worlds are the least realistic.
In one episode they say “augmented humans
and constructs.” Just like that, both together.

Augmented humans bring human and bot together
like constructs do, but live in a different world
where flesh alloyed to code is not less human.
It’s not some imaginary planet in a show.
It’s just this world, where my friend is realistic
and I don’t choose the media.

In another world we’d choose realistic shows
where the actors say “constructs and augmented humans.”
But we are here, watching unrealistic media together.

Notes:

borth says: thanks to my readers and encouragers! including but not limited to ArtemisTheHuntress, Ash, horchata, hummus_tea, lovedthestars, and to rosewind whose "Expurgate" endnotes gave me a pivot to spin my thoughts around.