This work is published as a video documentation of a simultaneously analog and digital poem— an instance of extreme inscription as described by Matthew Kirschenbaum. Written on a semiconductor alloy with “a focus GA ion beam” at font sizes much smaller than a pixel, requiring an electron microscope with magnification “ranges from 400x all the way to 10000x.” The naked eye cannot read this poem unaided, so the video takes us through an edited journey into the poem’s text reminiscent of Prezi, but much cooler in its materiality. (Source: Leonardo Flores, I ♥ E-Poetry)
The poetry can be read as fragments of pseudocode, that appear to degrade as the video documentation moves on. They are written as IF-THEN statements, but in human language. As the language degrades, they appear increasingly alien, non-human, perhaps more computer code-like. (Jill 30.03.2019)