*Poem accompanying the project 
published in "Brilliant Vibrating Interface Anthology", SPAM Press.

  the general anxiety surrounding 
  cyberfeminism 
  resulting in the reduction 
  of our work 
  to the question of whether or not 
  we engage with the system 
  of course we considered total opposition 
  to the main frame 
  or else contributed 
  in small ways to society
  what was done
  & even the badly done 
  was done exceptionally well 
  whether in ceramics or electronics 
  when you think about it 
  being in touch all the time 
  was taking up 
  hell of a lot of space
  i was edging towards my thirties
  had to organise this material
  intellectually also spiritually
  started making these ceramic 
  plates
  for my friends people i admire
  learnt some modelling techniques 
  for pots using 
  coil-building cross-hatching slip 
  poems & potted histories 
  from scratch 
  i made a pot
  my teachers were like wow it is a being
  to me it was a kind of shelter 
  precisely because i 
  could not be located
  at the same time you know 
  i was having this embarrassment coming from 
  was i a woman? 
  keep going though
  i said to the clay 
  when it was dry & when it was wet i said 
  be fixed 
  the clay was cold the smell of river my hands 
  dry because how are we talking about love? 
  it matters 
  someone pointed out to me 
  i was hoarding so many movies
  which i found through the most basic 
  18th century search terms
  like ‘GENAERAYT’ & ‘PRINT’ 
  because of failure 
  as an artist? or my body? 
  no no the visual material
  another friend said you know 
  this comes from your body 
  it never occurred to me he was referring to my 
  reproductive capacity
  i don’t know if i felt more powerful then 
  or now
  there is a part of me 
  that wants to be more radical
  & another part that wants to give 
  presents to friends
  there was this one manifesto 
  called Introduction to net.art (1999)
  a series of instructions 
  on how to be a net artist
  chiselled into stone
  people either dismissed Introduction 
  or praised it as ‘a joke on community’
  to the extent that it ‘dispelled any dreams 
  of having elided the commodification of art’
  presumably because it was itself
  an art work for sale was it ironic? 
  to me it contained utopias 
  i simply could not ignore
  irony is supposed to be 
  a one off instrument
  in the dramatic arts it soothes
  by representing some happening 
  in such a way the audience becomes aware 
  of something implicit in the story 
  as an instrument it builds 
  complicity but look around
  you are told to internalise the instrument 
  so you can become detached 
  so you can become objective 
  so you can become universal 
  there is a figure in greek comedy 
  called the eiron: the dis-assembler 
  who holds the power to grab a pussy
  by deliberately pretending 
  to be less intelligent than he actually is
  when this is done not to deceive politically 
  nor to violate a woman 
  well that is art are all monuments 
  ironic?
  to dismiss the plates is like saying 
  it is not important to fabricate worlds 
  that memory is not a pleasure endeavour 
  look at this one so pretty! 
  the first plate i made 
  worked into terracotta red 
  blues blazing through
  a needle some seeds
  the focus on inscription allowed me to push
  my existential questions to the back of my mind
  i could finally sleep 
  i could finally work on clearing out a cupboard i was calling ‘the garage’ 
  i could finally get on with 
  gathering together the very substance that 
  permits us to relate to one another 
  without moral bankruptcy
  it was easy to track down 
  there are a lot of examples 
  in history it is happening now
  i met with friends people I admire 
  & asked them to remember 
  think harder i said
  tell me about the days 
  the words the music 
  the comfort the pleasure 
  the absence or pressure 
  of something we call care 
  that which permits us to 
  relate to one another without moral bankruptcy
  i gathered what they gave to me & 
  the plates
  people liked the exercise because 
  remembering feels nice 
  but then it was out there: the info
  i gave the plates as gifts or put them 
  in a drawer it was beginning to take up 
  hell of a lot of space 
  i was edging towards my thirties
  had to organise this material
  intellectually also spiritually
  m came round so i could show him his 
  he said oh gosh! I don’t know if I want to see it! 
  & his became the model for the general program 
  because it is beautiful 
  but not because m wanted his plate in his own home
  b was shocked by the permanence of theirs
  t still hasn’t done one & d never finished hers
  when i did mine i did it wrong 
  & i invented it
  i had to do l’s again 
  because i lost the bit of paper we did the drawing on 
  i think on the bus 
  maybe i threw it away 
  can you believe it
  i berated myself so hard that day 
  for being such a careless machine
  l did hers again at my request
  but it was wrong
  i had to add bits of information
  things i myself had observed about her life
  that were missing 
  i was amassing that which did not belong to me 
  the info was heavy the amount of energy 
  required to keep it cool
  i was concerned they would surely break 
  in transit & i was moving around so much
  i needed to return home
  i started revising early net.art 
  came across writing about 
  post-internet art which i remember from 
  the tail end of a long party in London 
  bring your own 
  commercialisation & its critique
  was i thinking at that time about 
  irony? where the outside of this 
  elaborate joke was? either way 
  i stored these motifs of self-awareness 
  because 
  well i didn’t have a choice
  perhaps there could be 
  something called ‘post-irony’ 
  to the extent that detachment 
  & universality are revised like asking why
  are we embarrassed or sad?
  i’m genuinely asking you
  i have some ideas
  i take the plates out of the drawer
  they are so
  that blazing through
  blue
  arrange them around my body in an array 
  shake
  my head i am so fucking obsessed 
  with memory
  are you (i ask them i start) are you
  ironic? seriously
  are you in this with me? 
  there they are standing alone 
  in a world of stone
  they could respond & did 
  i thanked my friends for doing this with me
  & if you want to make yours
  i’m still here:
  https://openprocessing.org/sketch/892779