Where We Go From Here

Room used for interviews to gather material for the poems.

Gif that represents The Beacon project.

Gif that represents the Dream Catcher project.

A

it wasn’t a catalyst for anything in particular 	but I think I realized how far I had come:	we know we’re gonna leave		we know we’re going		travelling, visiting other areas, other countries, other states 		getting ideas for how to keep warm 		or how to put together a makeshift kitchen		--it was like a crazy fortune		--I could work on the same project for hours	--I painted a diamond on the floor	I lit some coals 		I burned this incense from India 	that was really fragrant		I did laps around the diamond		broke a mirror		--I had this light-sensitive retainer in my mouth 		when I would open and close my mouth 		it would change the volume of the sound	--so instead of the microphone 		--light

C

in the warehouse, which is imaginary	we just burn shit 			

that’s why everyone’s moving				we just have to wait for more buildings			and graffiti, we could do it		I did that one up there: 	“Castelvania Uncooperative”		there’s another--		it dims out		then comes right back		then it goes white then turns more of a red		the bulb, it tricks you		--every morning, we’d throw a bunch of shit		one day day there’s a ladder that’s 25 feet long 		how the fuck did that get into the river?		then they’ll be a beach chair in the middle of it		then some kids walking in it like it’s National Geographic 		fishing		naked

I

you’d walk or bike on this uneven pavement	you’d head for this door		on the top of the stairs, you’d see this light		--abstract		--brutal		--that legacy:		two hundred years 			and talking about having shows  in the void	with a push lawnmower, trying to run people over 		breaking 8ft. fluorescent tubes		water dripping from the roof		window panes	--you’d just fold into the space and hear from both sides this		“who-whis-wuu-wuu-w-whi-hishuhh”		this multiple granular synthesis 	noise of all the things happening at the same time		it was like the ocean	some kind of ocean wave sound		and you’re like	“it’s the ocean,		oh, no, wait, it’s the machines”

J

the space next to the river	the way light came in	--suns--		gorgeous abandoned annexes		magic hour, condensed		--sometimes we joked about running a tin can phone across the parking lot		on the ground, throwing it up		trying to get it through the window	and sometimes Mindy’s cat would jump through Tatyana’s window		--fire-like			in the middle of the night, the Rigorous Disco of Doom		two characters performing a wedding		one’s technology & the other’s nature		--there’s a party	the party is this celebration		there’s a priest & pigeons attack the priest	& then disco balls & fake guts & blood	resurrected	--then everybody turns	& it ends

C

a fucking castle	a soft kiss, a soft knife	a dead-end detour where we were all living   	--everybody knew the spirit of the place  	Soft 	        	always tucked away		no neighbors		I think that’s just the beast itself                  	some artifact         	sound, power	this big power          	this giant spark         	--it was my energy    	in charge      	in nature      	fucking Lightning     	possibilities--

D

being inside is like being inside a great serger		massive humming	 	not menacing at all

free space:	finished edges, raw seam & pattern		--the fantasy was to create a kind of safety that can’t exist elsewhere            	always safe, sitting in the river     	an untouched island    		a huge project		--in fact, I was thinking about this recently		I could move to some small town 	buy a mill there		then I get to do the work		& the flood--	I don’t know 	I don’t know	I don’t think that’s it	we were underwater		we were this island		and it was, somehow, 		okay

T

I remembered, at one point, we didn’t know anybody	people would wake up 	get out, go around the bonfire		whatever, smoke, burn holes		spray paint in a cave	--you don’t always want to be public 		we would talk		--you walk in and you think you see something      	

but it’s just the building 	--the wind on this building  		--the vastness of the building                   	so threatening, so close		at night it’s fucking beautiful		it beats, makes sound 	like everything else

S

rumors were starting rumors            in the parking lot, over email            everybody had to go              they were trying to avoid	 the kind of complete shit show 	when people get evicted	vacate, disappear, collapse or burn	we ended up                             in a passageway       	we were all sitting like lace & lights & bones	--the transformation of those spaces                               they are massive		 --we made smaller spaces	we built a maze of paper	created new ways to move	   --it’s weird to go back	usually the second floor is closed off	but one day the door propped open 	& I went in there with some friends		& wandered wild vestiges	--night & glowing eyes & only a few lights

T

I was welding 	metal spikes hanging from the ceiling	 over & over I cast weird surface imperfections       the way light moves through glass, you have to look close:		bees hardened & hanging on a string		may come alive & swarm		eventually will shatter	--inaudible            & what to cast, I’m not sure                there are vapors & gasmasks & sirens & gloves		but sometimes I live here	& it’s raining glass		in the building forever 	--and this is all that’s left--	steel & light & armature	something structural	a full metal shop		--people come & ask to use it for various projects & then		one of the walls, abstract, falls down		but that image of glass 		always lives here

E

I really liked our space        	if you looked out the window there was a little roof wing	               	it looked over the river 	--I got lost down there once    	I started running trying to get out 	and came out a place and didn’t know how I got there           	--people used to always do that  	--static		--the face		--a huge net      	--a dream catcher                   	--one day we went to the woods 	and there was this really tall tree	like 100 feet and there was this crazy vine 		that was kind of dead, hanging   	--we were like, “we should pull this”		--but it was actually way harder than it sounded		so it was like five of us trying to yank it off like running--

tear gas. fireflies. a reckless chase through the haze. SUNLIGHT.
combing the tear gas out of my hair. later awakening.
a motorcycle corona. ecological collapse. waves of stations.
a planter’s village. machine vision.
robot assisted surgery. immersive. exhaustive. gunshots.
gates of paradise. midnight cherries. forever cherries.
a snail. radio lilacs and summer.
utterly consumed by the screen, a gunshot mirror.
a hundred houses, cool in moonlight.
autumn meteor copper.
cancer, stable. washing slowly the tear gas out of my hair,
the interrogation. waves. radiation. leaving the station.
guided utterly by hundreds of vertical idling chrysanthemums. summer. clouds.
observe the helicopter. the beam. the pilot’s brain computer interface.
a swarm of horses. gunshots. wisteria.
poems. armor. sunlight. cherries.
I’m a gif. a repeating figure. a vertical stripe by green moss.
virtual world SUNSHINE.

Section: 1 of 40
Method: collab with remixing bot
Themes: technology. protest. memory. apocalypse.

tear gas. fireflies. a reckless chase through the haze. SUNLIGHT.
combing the tear gas out of my hair. later awakening.
a motorcycle corona. ecological collapse. waves of stations.
a planter’s village. machine vision.
robot assisted surgery. immersive. exhaustive. gunshots.
gates of paradise. midnight cherries. forever cherries.
a snail. radio lilacs and summer.
utterly consumed by the screen, a gunshot mirror.
a hundred houses, cool in moonlight.
autumn meteor copper.
cancer, stable. washing slowly the tear gas out of my hair,
the interrogation. waves. radiation. leaving the station.
guided utterly by hundreds of vertical idling chrysanthemums. summer. clouds.
observe the helicopter. the beam. the pilot’s brain computer interface.
a swarm of horses. gunshots. wisteria.
poems. armor. sunlight. cherries.
I’m a gif. a repeating figure. a vertical stripe by green moss.
virtual world SUNSHINE.

Section: 2 of 40
Method: excerpts of oral history collected by AEMP
Themes: eviction, solidarity of the evicted, tech world responsibility

Claudia: I’m in this sea, “I’m swimming in this sea and I haven’t quite gotten the life raft.”
Claudia: I always think of the Heart of Darkness book. It’s a tiny little book and then it became a part of so many movies, and you know, that’s how I feel... “lost in the cause!”
Claudia: If I talk to Patricia, talk to Benito, talk to people who have been evicted before who are there to fight evictions - they understand. They understand what it feels like. They understand what it’s... about.
Claudia: “I think that everybody is in this kind of haze. They’re in love with the tech world. They’re just fascinated by all that it can do. I don’t know how to explain it without using a girl. It’s like the hot girl that everyone’s like, “She can’t do anything wrong, she’s awesome! You know what I mean?”

Section: 3 of 40
Method: collab with twitter scraping bot
Themes: SF of data, weather, police brutality, class conflict
Hello sunshine. Good morning. Good morning. Happy Saturday.
Surf is still out of control today-- broken clouds--
It’s time to make some noise again.
Today, there was a #peacefulriot for standing against police brutality.
Today, Yelp wants a Software Engineer - Infrastructure.
Today, Yelp wants a Software Engineer - Data-Mining.
Opened Graffiti request via iphone at 709 Hyde St. Scrawl. (Photo: “evict the yuppies”).

Section: 4 of 40
Method: collab with twitter scraping bot
Themes: SF of data, data barons, class conflict

At the hub, the #richdatasummit, almost drafted, texting.
you should try it, the bear represents California: the energy.
At 54 mint, the final stop, drinking a troublesome.
POTUS 44 is @ the Warfield, the Godfather of Silicon Valley.
now you can really feel, the Open Damaged Public Property request via Android at 934 Market St.
the Open Graffiti Request via Android at 86 Golden Gate Ave "TF”.
the Open Potholes and Street Defects request via Android at 1001 Market St.
the Opened Street or Sidewalk Cleaning via Iphone at 950 Market St.
Nate Silver discussing the signal and the noise.
Triple posting today because #iconic, weirdest/unexpected/best lineup, possibly ever,
a gift from the entrepreneurs --

Section: 5 of 40
Method: excerpts of oral history collected by AEMP
Themes: the mission, tech money, gentrification

Lucia: Day of the Dead by Renee Yanez started. Right next to this, there was a complete parallel world. It was the world of the low riders and the girls; a lot of mascara and eyeliner and they would wrap this leather around their hands and I remember seeing this scene and I would walk up the Mission and I’d be like “Wow, what the hell?”.
Lucia: And then came 2000 which was the first BOOM, you know, 1999 - 2000, dot com. Everybody hated the dot-commers but everybody worked for the dot-commers; it was really funny. They were all like “Oh my god, the dot-commers,” but the minute they got a job with the dot commers, they were all working for the dot-commers.

Section: 6 of 40
Method: excerpted from Data and Goliath by Bruce Schneier
Themes: data barons, privacy, surveillance

Our relationship with many of the Internet companies we rely on is not a traditional company–customer relationship. That’s primarily because we’re not customers. We’re products those companies sell to their real customers. The relationship is more feudal than commercial. The companies are analogous to feudal lords, and we are their vassals, peasants, and—on a bad day—serfs. We are tenant farmers for these companies, working on their land by producing data that they in turn sell for profit.

Section: 7 of 40
Method: excerpt of oral history collected by AEMP
Themes: diversity, SF, real estate developers, class conflict

Claudia: We all have to respect each other in our differences and our sexual orientation and everything that we stand for in San Francisco. That’s what makes San Francisco awesome. Like that one crazy person that was flash dancing to flashdance. No one even stared at them, that’s what makes San Francisco the place that people want to come to and why it’s a safe haven for everybody and it should be because we are different.

Section: 8 of 40
Method: collab with a twitter scraping bot
Themes: future SF, ai real estate, displacement

black spheres in the houses. virtual worlds. irrevocable contour, armored, studied.
artificial midnight— fully automated housing auctions. a floating airborne wind turbine.

it's all houses
in a way that you wouldn't understand
#smartaptadv
 , some kind of automated, housing placement system,
intelligences like "Her" or "Ex Machina"
but for house attribution

 saw a woman hanging from out
of the mayor's building spinning and spinning
while she was falling
but still holding a cord
that's us

Section: 9 of 40
Method: collab with a twitter scraping bot
Themes: future SF, virtual real estate, displacement

got to make new housing friends at the Capitol
saying they want to see more high-density housing around transit,
   glitches.
   VR in the houses, VR-houses:
the idea that the more housing you produce you induce demand,
   burgeoning densities have that problem.
this is not a hypothetical theory:
a house I saw in satellite view filled with infinite families,
   real time

Section: 10 of 40
Method: collab with a twitter scraping bot
Themes: future SF, eviction

California , just a bunch of red lights on green mountains fixed to windmills -
just a bunch of spinning blades, killing birds -
Caltrain engineers, watching cyborgs go back home on the bart -

Iris Canada evicted, 98 yrs old -
first amazing performance of the 21st century city.

let me tell you a joke:
what's inside an infinitely dense apartment -
an event horizon.

it's a bad joke I know,
but I'm just getting home.

Section: 11 of 40
Method: collab with a twitter scraping bot
Themes: future SF, AI real estate, displacement

    affordable circuits: patterns
people
in public housing
in floating wind turbines
in machines -- know how so many public housing residents in #SanFrancisco feel
breeze.
       night.
the superconductivity          of San Francisco's housing market.

let me tell you another joke: these grown up professionals
   would nuke the subsidized housing funding system--
these fucker professionals
will talk about fair housing,
        but what's behind SF's housing fight?

human hearts, hummingbirds, columns with silicone chips inside them
sensing housing prices

Section: 12 of 40
Method: excerpts of oral history collected by AEMP
Themes: false advertising

Claudia Tirado: Mega Godzilla apartment complexes that are being sold for ridiculous amounts of money. Like, they’re being sold like luxury, like, “Luxury Apartment!” I’m like, “Ugh! You don’t even have a deck! There’s not even a little deck. How can that be a luxury apartment?!!”

Section: 13 of 40
Method: excerpted from The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu
Themes: advertising, data merchants

At bottom, whether we acknowledge it or not, the [data] merchants have come to play an important part in setting the course of our lives and consequently the future of the human race, insofar as that future will be nothing more than the running total of our individual mental states. At stake is something akin to how one's life is lived. If we desire a future that avoids the enslavement of the propaganda state as well as the narcosis of the consumer and celebrity culture, we must first acknowledge the preciousness of our attention and resolve not to part with it as cheaply or unthinkingly as we so often have. And then we must act, individually and collectively, to make our attention our own again, and so reclaim ownership of the very experience of living.

Section: 14 of 40
Method: excerpts of oral history collected by AEMP
Themes: volunteering, face to face connection, homelessness

Michael Rouppet: When Michael talks about volunteering it goes way beyond that because he doesn’t get paid to do this work. I think we are only successful because of people like Michael who have who used their experiences to reshape their humanity. Some of us are tired and Michael will make them feel welcomed. One time, he turned to someone and said that could be me or that was me. I have known Michael for little bit over a year and from first time I met him I was telling him I was really really angry, but he is forever optimistic. He is setting an example that we should all live by and so that's why if you need a room I will get it for you. It’s an honor to support someone at this stage in their life because some people can’t even listen to it and get overwhelmed, but Michael had to live through that and yet he is coming out of it helping others.

Section: 15 of 40
Method: collab with a twitter scraping bot
Themes: ABNB, data barons, housing

The new @airbnb homepage, now focused on Experiences.
Airbnb is providing free housing to refugees and anyone not allowed in the US.
"We characterize data as the voice of our users at scale.”
In this day and age, we all need to find creative ways to make $.
How about renting out all or part of your home?
@Airbnb can you help with emergency housing?
Airbnb の賃料を自動化するマーケティングツール
Airbnb hosts more likely to reject the disabled, according to Rutgers study.
114,000 people have stayed in treehouses on Airbnb.

Section: 16 of 40
Method: writing with a bot that scrapes twitter
Themes: tech bus, tech campus, class conflict

Apple's 3D sensing tech is two years ahead of the competition
Apple 3D mapping patent points to possibility of hand tracking in AR
Apple is testing 3-D face scanning for the next iPhone
I'm that asshole on the Apple bus speed-birdwatching
the estuary near the Oakland airport. Bar-tailed godwits y'all!
Apple Watch works automatically and the heart rate will show
screaming at the apple store
Exclusive Photos of the 2017 Solar Eclipse
Apple's Sunnyvale neighbors call campus 'constant hell'
Has Apple gotten back to you yet?
Or do you expect them to?
The Secure Enclave team at Apple is hiring.

Section: 17 of 40
Method: excerpts of oral history collected by AEMP
Themes: Mission, Latin American Studies, eviction

Lucia: La Raza movement at San Francisco State was also just coming together and all the movements of Latin American studies. At the beginning, everybody thought why should we have African studies. Latin American studies, what is that, that’s not a real degree. Now nobody questions. Actually, a Chilean, Beatriz Manz, has been key to building that Center for Latin American Studies. The scene revolved a lot around the cafe and Mission Dance Central. We were all rehearsing upstairs from Cafe La Boheme because we were creating Carnaval. I remember once they rehearsed in my place and there was glitter in my house for the next year. Everytime I opened a drawer there was glitter coming out of my drawers.

Section: 18 of 40
Method: excerpted from In Defense of Housing by David Madden and Peter Marcuse
Themes: housing crisis, displacement, eviction

The housing crisis is global in scope. London, Shanghai, Sao Paulo, Mumbai, Lagos, indeed nearly every major city faces its own residential struggles. Land grabs, forced evictions, expulsions, and displacement are rampant. According to the United Nations, the homeless population across the planet may be anywhere between 100 million and one billion people, depending on how homelessness is defined. It has been estimated that globally there are currently 300 million households - more than a billion people - that are unable to find a decent or affordable home.

Section: 19 of 40
Method: excerpts of oral history collected by AEMP
Themes: eviction, anti-eviction, tenant’s rights

Eddie Stiel: You're faced with an eviction, your building's for sale, or you have a new landlord who just bought it... Don't leave. Make them go through the process. Educate yourself about what your rights are. There's agencies in the city, their job is to so you know your rights. Go to them and get, find, listen to what they tell you. Go to the Tenants Union, go to the Housing Rights Committee, go to Causajusta. Go. Don't make, do any action, until you understand what your options are.

Section: 20 of 40
Method: writing from experience at a protest
Themes: protest, blockchain, police brutality

perfect blockchain memory
shutting down mission and 24th
blockading the street
police in riot gear
exactly 54

drones
no rubber bullets
just blocking the fucking street
projections on the wall of the faces of the dead
names are the following:

Section: 21 of 40
Method: excerpt of protest sign
Themes: police brutality

2017: Patrick Harmon (Salt Lake City, UT)
2017: Jordan Edwards (Balch Springs, TX)
2016: Alfred Olango (El Cajon, CA)
2016: Terence Crutcher (Tulsa, OK)
2015: Jamar Clark (Minneapolis, MN)
2015: India Kager (Virginia Beach, VA)
2015: Christian Taylor (Arlington, TX)
2015: Sam Dubose (Cincinnati, OH)
2015: Sandra Bland (Prairie View, TX)
2015: Icarus Randolph (Witchita, KS)
2015: Freddie Gray (Baltimore, MD)
2015: Walter Scott (North Charleston, SC)
2015: Tony Robinson (Madison, WI)
2015: Anthony Hill (Chamblee, GA)
2014: Akai Gurley (New York, NY)
2014: Tamir Rice (Cleveland, OH)
2014: Victor White III (Iberia Parish, LA)
2014: Dante Parker (San Bernardino County, CA)
2014: Ezell Ford (Los Angeles, CA)
2014: Michael Brown (Ferguson, MO)
2014: Tyree Woodson (Baltimore, MD)
2014: John Crawford III (Beavercreek, OH)
2014: Eric Garner (New York, NY)
contin'd

Section: 22 of 40
Method: writing from experience at a protest
Themes: protest, blockchain, light-projection

the lady circling the protest with burning sage
my camera, my perfect memory

blocking off the street with a memory catcher
what's a memory catcher:
it’s a sequence of light patterns -
the patterns catch attention
the attention is directed to a memory
the memory becomes an argument or another pattern
everything repeats

Section: 23 of 40
Method: writing from experience at a protest
Themes: protest, light-projection

what happens:
people thank you for building the memory catcher
what do they look like-
they look like everyone
other people laugh at the memory catcher -
but that’s a crowd

you could automate an entire
sequence of memory catchers in a city
you could string an entire city with tripwire
light and tripwire -
if you had the cash

Section: 24 of 40
Method: writing from experience at a protest
Themes: protest, real-estate gala

we build another memory catcher inside a real-estate gala -
it was an award “city of hope”

we built the catcher inside of the hotel -
the developers that were filing into the gala
were forced to listen to the stories
of those they had evicted -

one of the real estate developers
came and sang with the protestors -
everyone was upset

there's a kind of link
between the police and the developers
54 police exactly

there’s another link
between the developers and data barons
data, of course

Section: 25 of 40
Method: writing from experience at a protest
Themes: protest, real-estate gala, memory

the memory catcher of sound
spooling out the stories of the evicted
sung into of the gala
by a group of protestors dressed in black -
thousands of cameras
a reverberating system
that forms a crystal -
the crystal is a life recorded perfectly

Section: 26 of 40
Method: writing from experience at a protest
Themes: protest, real-estate gala, memory, future SF

the real estate developers
walked by and shrugged off the memory catcher
but the cameras live streamed everything
which were recorded by machines permanently
and when the dead are raised
from their suspension tanks
these deeds will of course be remembered
and the genetics of the perpetrators
will be disbursed

Section: 27 of 40
Method: writing from experience at a protest
Themes: real-estate gala, greed, future SF

I walked into the gala after the protestors got kicked out
I walked among the gems and the suits
for an hour
I drank wine and water off the tables of the developers
I told them I was a high speed algorithmic auctioneer
and they were interested:
interested in how the machines
could capture the value of the spaces of the city:
interested in little else

Section: 28 of 40
Method: excerpts of oral history collected by AEMP
Themes: gentrification, real-estate

Eddie Stiel: I mean, we went through, we went through a lot of minor hell at that apartment. Minor, to semi-major hell. They sold it to an investment company. And that investment company tried to get rid of us in the mid, in the late nineties. There was a gate that went to the street, between the two houses, for the driveway. And they, it just broke and they never fixed it. And so then it became like, prostitutes sometimes would use the backyard to turn tricks. And then there was the empty unit downstairs that became like, a place where people used it as like, a place to do drugs. Someone died in there once. There was, like, a lot of stuff. There was a lot of weird things that happened.

Section: 29 of 40
Method: excerpted from The Shaping of Us by Lily Bernheimer
Themes: housing as identification

Why should we care about place attachment in relation to the housing crisis? Well first, because it helps explain so many things about how we act and think in relation to housing. But second, because we also know that when people feel attached to the place and the community they live in, they also tend to have higher rates of overall well-being. A large body of research on what is called 'identity process theory' has identified a number of props we use to support our identities, such as sense of continuity over time, positive distinctiveness, self-efficacy, self-esteem, and belonging. Feel upset that an old building is being demolished? Perhaps it makes you feel a bit old and ready for demolition yourself?

Section: 30 of 40
Method: excerpts of oral history collected by AEMP
Themes: anti-eviction activism, neighborhood identification, greed

Edwin Lindo: But my dad—if I wasn’t there—I don’t know what he’d do. I mean—he’s disabled, he’s going to be 64 now. And it was stressing him out—he had already fought it 3 times—without an attorney: writing briefs by hand and submitting them to the court, and I can tell it took a court. And this last time, he wanted to fight. He said, I will handcuff myself to this door until the sheriffs come. They can take me that way. Because this is my home. And I’m not going to lose it because of greed.

Section: 31 of 40
Method: re-writing of The Machines of Loving Grace by Richard Brautigan
Themes: future SF, cybernetics, blockchain

I haven't told you yet,
I know about the place where the evicted gather
I like to think about it (the sooner the better)
it's the New Presidio,
which has become a kind of open field
where the evicted and automated snack delivery robots
live together in a strange sort of harmony.
where there are tiny houses
and orchid geneticists breeding new forms of flowers;
there are trees filled with electricity
that sense the coming earthquakes;
there are iris scanners
that attract flying insects but not too close;
and democratic councils
operated by the blockchains of grace...

Section: 32 of 40
Method: n/a
Themes: future SF, blockchain, eviction

the blockchains of grace,
the immutable record of the evicted
hashed into the metadata of the chain
here, here, and here-
their genomic sequence uploaded in the comments,
graffiti searchable forever
by the deep learning of the patchwork
of the New Presidio,
the mega insect of the New Presidio,
that only the evicted are part of
and the drones flying between the trees
depth-mapping the tiny houses
and other drones

Section: 33 of 40
Method: n/a
Themes: future SF, eco-village, drones, eviction

I pass the face of Nik Bertulis,
I pass the face of Victoria Rodriguez,
I pass the face of all the others,
holding my hand out before me
holding my drones out before me
that follow me in a flock
and exchange transmissions with the other drones
going deeper and deeper into the tiny house village

Section: 34 of 40
Method: n/a
Themes: future SF, eco-village, blockchain, drones, eviction

the drones are lights flying between us
recording everything streaming everything to
the blockchains of grace
'the final book' some people call it
the drones fly among the trees
in a light shift pattern
that forms a map of the evicted -
they remind me of the fires
when there were fires over and over
in California but
these are a kind of strange
controlled burn

Section: 35 of 40
Method: n/a
Themes: future SF, internet archive, blockchain, drones, eviction

we're walking to the internet archive
with all the drones around us
with all the evicted around us
up the steps of the columns
up the columns and into the archive
where the green lights of the servers
blip like insects and the insects
also blip green next to them
and the seats wheel themselves away
and clear the floor

Section: 36 of 40
Method: n/a
Themes: future SF, virtual SF, internet archive, displacement

inside of the network
are the infinite houses
the infinite worlds
and the infinite houses
the houses that expand infinitely into the aether
that are weightless and massless
where the evicted go to
and where they are stored infinitely
and where they keep living indefinitely
inside of a simulation of another other San Francisco

Section: 37 of 40
Method: n/a
Themes: future SF, virtual SF, eco-village, displacement

so, there's the eco-villages of the New Presidio
that stretch all the way across the shoreline
to the coming and going of the massive drone
cargo ships that still somehow arrive from China
and Japan, which of course still exist
and there's also this other reality:
of all the San Francisco's that could have been
if people had been able to stay,
stored in the networked worlds -
I wave my hand and all the lights turn off

Section: 38 of 40
Method: n/a
Themes: future SF, eviction, displacement, drones

I walk out into the sunlight
with my flock of drones following and everyone
And I look at the descendants of the evicted
And I look into the face of the descendants of Erin
and the face of the descendants of Faiq
And I think that this is the world after the contraction
freer, lighter, on the earth
recorded forever
somehow, both more chained
and more free

Section: 39 of 40
Method: excerpts of oral history collected by AEMP
Themes: immigration

Claudia: So it just happened naturally for me, I was, I was an immigrant still, I wasn’t legal, um, and I remember very distinctly, going to the beach with my friend, my best friend, who’s still my best friend. She lives down the street actually, not even that far from me. Um, she’s very white, and you know, we’ll like always go to the beach and see, she would be so jealous that I could tan so easily and she would be like, lathered in oil, trying to tan herself. And I remember, she looked at me really strangely one time and she’s like, “You know, Claudia, you’re not an immigrant to me.”

Section 40 of 40
Method: writing with a bot that remixes language
Themes: technology. protest. memory. apocalypse.

snow in bloom throughout the image.
snow obliterating the bay.
a chorus of helicopters that fly left, fly left, fly right, the world.
coherence and persistence over time.
interconnection.
night deepens the color of the gate.
night deepens older technologies. the virtual temple's shininess.
fields on which snow is falling.
in the forest, the prominent impact of the robot's footsteps.
the whistle. the rent. spray. the chop chop of the blades.
armor.
everything moving towards stronger interconnection and uncertainty,
flowing towards Angel Island.
cherries. fireworks.
watching video together in the sky, on clouds. in light. a beam.
the pilot's cognitive agents.
thousands of interconnected robots and humans. bees. beetles. bells.
stolen cherries. water. day darkens Muir.
I wash the tear gas from your hair.
I cradle you in my hands, you and I and our infinite virtual images and differences.

Prologue

Once I went into the neighborhood with S.. We broke into an attic.
We climbed out onto the roof to look at the northern tower of Atlantic Mill.
There was a huge hole - ripped - gashed into the top of the tower.

James Turrell’s grandmother told him in the quaker meeting hall - find the light -
he couldn’t - so he made the light - “Mad Genius Buys Volcano
Transforms it into Naked Eye Observatory” -

Light is a miracle - that there is any light - 
that you watch the orange security light
turn more and more orange by degrees until suddenly it flips off 
leaving a flare in your eye - a burn or blast - a vibration -
flak bombs exploding over the field or the rusted roof.

I. Glass Windows

P. took photos of the cracked glass on the floor -
light - light - flash - flash - flash -
Is that what the glass looked like 
when the rocks came through the window?

P. says he wish he could have photographed it as it happened -
same night as the Boston bombings -
reading/watching the news - people losing limbs.

Imagine what would have happened if I had been in the building with M. -
would she have had her blind eyes cut?
the eyes - the flash - flash - flash - of P.’s photographs -
rocks

*

This was what precipitated the building’s next phase: 
the factory building's gates were replaced by gates without rust -
the doors were painted red - red without lead paint -
and the red curtains in the prostitutes room were removed.

see the feather that’s still hanging from the window?
see the poster of pipes looping through a building -
see the name of one of the punk group’s show: “recursion” 
see the place where it says - “finished”?

*

The last punk group is getting evicted.
They smashed the window of my makeshift area 
when they found out.
Headless Anarchism says M. - 
the sun slides through the window’s frames 
and strikes me in the face.

II. Island

The lamplit - the flooded - the well-lit and auto-fluorescent -
the inflamed - the sunlit -

blast furnaces - capital one & capital two -
rays of light -
verticals - diagonals -

“We are moving into the future where the factory is everywhere, 
and the design team is everyone" - fuck -

*

A. was there with his two silver face studs -
two permanent artificial dimples.
He was there with his womens cowboy boots -
his yip and his low growl - his unsarl and go -
his index finger pointing down 
at the water that had flooded the factory one foot high.

D. was there too, but standing on the roof -
watching a neon ferris wheel in a nearby park - light/light - 
purple that becomes red -
that becomes blue -
that becomes white - 

D. afixes his language to the ceiling of the building -
The words glow, illuminating the dust.

That language is its own being - what remains -
nesting in the ceiling - prima materia - presence - reality -
or just a bunch of fluorescent lights - humming -

*

I go out onto the roof and look out.

All I see is ferris wheels - rays and rays of light - 
diagonals - vortices - other mills - 

I wrap myself in textiles -
I imagine the shattered glass
melted down into a knife.

III. Dream Catchers

Graffiti: “un-cooperative co-op” - “the dungeon” - 
There’s a hanging sculpture in here,
brown twigs wound into a circle with a radius of three feet.

There’s a black mesh in the middle -
what is it - I asked -
“it’s a dream catcher” -

E. walks up to the wall - flicks on a fan -
the whole room hums.

There’s a hole in the ceiling - a concrete shaft
with light coming down from the hole -
gunmetal - concrete - but not soviet.

*

E. told me that they wanted
to build a whole second story full of rooms -
a music studio - a photography studio -
fish tanks -
the ideal collective living space. 

Some kid from Colorado came
and built this huge net
you could hang out on -

the net - like the canopy of a tree - 
the net and the dream catcher -
a little dream catcher and a large dream catcher -

IV. Production Problems

We walked out onto the roof, looked down at the river 
running alongside the mill.

E. says he was afraid someone was going to fall -
“Do you think they would die?” I asked.

I kicked my legs over the edge.

E, says that if someone had fallen,
they would have just buried the body.

E. told me once C threw a bunch of firecrackers
over the wood wall and into Witch Club, the other collective space.

They came back another night in mask
and beat the shit out of him.

Then another night C. knocked down all of E.’s fish tanks
so E. ripped down the fabric that C.’s room was made out of
and punched him in the face. 

The first time I came to Providence, I posted on the list serve: 
“I’m here, show me the spaces” - and everyone posted -
“narc, narc, narc, narc”
but C. showed me around.

C. said they lit a fire and let the smoke out the ceiling -
 lit a fire on the concrete in the building wilderness -
gathered around it, “if you were fucked up, we wanted you,” he said.

V. Lift Off

The factory levitates
and a man made of long fluorescent tubing 
jogs inside it.

The rest of us float, hanging with our feet pointed up towards the sky.
The factory is producing air: its blue-gray doors open, shuddering,
and clouds drift out, momentarily obscuring us from each other.

From here up in the dark, I can see the white security lights above the river -
points inside a mirror.
The ferris wheel is below us - 
fireworks chase us.

Somehow, I float into the sky-doors in my sleep, wake  up -
I grab them and my gravity reverses 
and I am sitting on the landing, inside the building, looking down at the street.

I can hear the sound of the fluorescent man
walking between the machines  - 
crunch - crunch - crunch -

Everyone from Youth Build is coming to work, but then they look up
and see that the building isn’t there -
it’s in the sky.

Jay from Olneyville Housing
stamps his feet and shouts - “Come down!” 
“Come the fuck down, right now!” -

Everyone wakes up, laughing.
The Sky Brigade floats towards their horns -
French Horn - Tuba - Bad Ass Horn - Big One -
floating around the building - 

*

Listen to this, all the names of clouds:
“cumulus - stratus - cirrus - nimbus - heap - layer - curl - 
alto-stratus - cumulonimbus”

The factory is manufacturing the air - more and more of it.
“Is this supposed to prevent global warming” - A. asks -
J. says, “It’s our cover, I asked the fluorescent guy to keep it all going” -
“You know that guy?” I say.

VI. A Concert in the Air

Brass brass everyone - brass brass everywhere -
there’s music coming out of the sky-doors.
Jay O’Grady seems like a dick - music - 
tone - pitch -slick -
thirty songs - let’s go.

The Sky Brigade is a 19-piece brass band -
from Providence, RI, USA. 
The sound is an aggressive mix -
of Bollywood, The Balkans, New Orleans, Samba and Hip-Hop - 
played with the intensity of metal, requiring no amplification.

We prove that great parties need no electricity - 
our live shows defy boundaries - 
appealing equally to punks and farmers, old and young.

*

It’s like they took the factory machines
and beat them into instruments - 
It’s like the sound of a thousand looms reconstructed
into a marching band.

It’s like bridges being smashed -
It’s a horn out front - fuck that horn out front - 
who the fuck is that - is that D., Sousophone D.?

He once collapsed a lung due to his antics with this band -
After a few months, he was back to risky
tuba-based behavior -

There’s another horn in the background -
G. - born a small white child -
G. grew to an even larger white child - 
a giant child who blows horns - he does it deep -
be it esoteric philosophy - scuba or noise -

The machines are marching - 
The sky is marching - 
All those shit-head clouds are marching 
Somewhere - 

Where the fuck are all these people going?

Jay O’Grady is marching -
PVP pipes slice the air -
Even the goddamn bricks of the building are marching 
loaded with a strange light -

*

Light cathedral of 
noise - noise - noise -
some kind of light machine - pink lights -
cerise lights - purple lights - the brass itself reflecting 
the sky clouds - street lights -
The light extending and clashing and smacking
against everything -

N., he’s on the horns:
“Sometimes, at shows I try to go up to people -
and dance with them but my pointy bones frighten them -”

Where is S.
and her god damn houses that are musical instruments?
Why isn’t the factory itself some kind of instrument?
The industrial revolution chased by light -
The digital revolution -
And the very first light of the world -
Caused by יהוה, removing himself -

C. -
C. plays trombone, and hopes to someday 
play all the notes, ever -
like the Big Man himself.

*

There’s only one song left - and its sad.
The trombones  seem like soldiers about to fire rifles into the air -
bang - bang - bang - bang - bang -
The last march before the eviction -

All the light has stilled and rests in puddles around the feet of the musicians.
How did sound get turned into light?
And why is this light so sad? 

twilight light - 
light before the new world is born light -
music light - stupid light -
star that lets the last light go -
tamborine light -
click light - click - click - click -

look out there beyond the far light - there’s
a new universe - bubbling up - and that fucker -
look at that fucker explode !

VII. Forest

The forest is always coming up to the factory.
The forest will always reclaim the factory - 
Acer Rubrum - Acer Sachrum - Betula Nigra (Heritage) -
Celtis Occidentalis - Gingko Biloba - Gleditsia triacanthos inermis -

The forest is always there - Gymnocladus dioicus -
Liquidambar styraciflua - Liriodendron tulipifera - 
Metasequoia glyptostroboides -
You can see the forest from the top of the mill.
You can hear the cicadas.

You can imagine the forest
being inside of the building after everyone has left.
You can imagine the shafts of light that the vines
have whittled through the stone - Platanus x acerifolia -
Quercus bicolor - Quercus imbricaria -

White warm sunlight quiet of the dust
Quercus palustris - Quercus phellos -
The river is wider than ever before.

There’s a brick wall standing
where the tower used to be.
There’s a brick standing
where a wall used to be.

It’s only a matter of time
before lightning strikes the building again.

Quercus robur - Quercus rubra -
The windows are falling inwards -
and they are breaking and shattering light across the floor.
Styphnolobium japonicum - Taxodium distichum -

Once I was walking with J. in the forest 
next to the building and I said it seemed like the garden of Eden.
She said, “I’m the forbidden fruit” - “obviously”

*

Sitting with S. on the roof. 
The red moon rises over the building,
rises over the forest above the river,
over the lights of Olneyville,
over the lights of S.’s cell phone,
a little square.

The forest surrounds the mill, not quite piercing it,
not quite reclaiming it.
The cut on the top of my palm,
the jagged arc of hot steel that hit me when I was welding.
To S., this is just dead space.
She doesn’t have the associations.

We talk about how she made algae glow
in a vial for one of her installations.
We talk about how she walked around 
with a plant from the forest
in a plastic frame attached to a gas mask
so she could breathe the plant’s oxygen. 

The moon’s corona.
Hyperlocalist memories -
city edges - everything like a grip.
Sophia pulls out her little square of light.
Different glow - the windows - different glow - the light
popping out of the building -
different glass -

VIII. Nursery

We go to the tree nursery close by to listen to the crickets.
Dark - dark dark goose - walking past the grate,
past something that smells like a body.

The nursery is a reverse forest - 
a forest that is surrounded by mills -
We enter into the gate - 
I reach my hand out and touch all the tall-standing flowers.

They feel fuzzy.

S. says she always needs someone to go first - 
so she’s behind me and I can hear her footsteps
falling on the wood chips.

We cut a path through the cricket clicks, blindly making
our way into the nursery.

It’s just dark and light and green and we are pressed in
by the red bricks on all sides and even at 2am -
bam - bam - bam -
someone is swinging a hammer against metal.

*

Bycles pass - cars pass - we are surrounded by the fence -
“Do you ever come in here alone?” she asks.
“No,  I don’t.”

I look around - but it’s just someone walking
and the headlights of the cars shine over the small trees
casting shadows on the bricks.

There are tubes -
S. points to them and says that the trees 
must be fed automatically and she touches a branch.

“I wonder where they are planted afterwards?” I say.

There’s the glassiness leaving her eyes for a second
while she looks at the trees and checks the insulin
pouch that’s against her thigh. It beeps -

I go looking through the pieces in her portfolio in my mind -
There’s one called ‘abandoned experiment’ where 
there are needles floating above a jet black lake.

She’s got another piece where she’s left a bunch
of glowing orbs glistening on the beach -
 ‘washed up in a near distant future,’ she called it.

IX. Colored Glass

J. - sitting at a table on the top floor
tossing fabric into the center -
laser cut textiles.

She’s starting a business in the mill -
or thinking about it - amaryllis - 
azalea - allium - begonia -

blackthorn - bluebell -
She shows me the laser cutter -
boronia - bloodroot -

I said I hated the landlord.
She wishes she could spend more time with him -
get to know him - 
change his mind about things.

She lays more textile on the table - 
She found a manufacturer bringing in just the right kind of felt.
Her parents helped her purchase some. 

She’s watching the laser cut the textile -
then she’s sewing the felt together into a flower.

*

She told me she grew up in Queens and she was looking 
at a fish tank with all these colorful fish inside it.

She said everything she makes looks like this - 
traces back to that one moment staring through glass.

The color in the room is peculiar - it’s this reddark -
not really comprehensible brown - it’s dangerous to go into
the colors up here - on the top of the building -

She shows me her website:
it’s J. with a blow-torch and goggles burning and refitting glass -
turning it into shapes with thousands of different colors -
all hanging from the ceiling -

“Glass Rain” the installation was called.

*

We walk into the other room -
Push through door and its flowers - flowers everywhere -
made of yarn -

“What is it?” - “It’s a hibiscus” - immense - bright shocking red -

What else was in the room?
A pillow that looked like a cat with a bunch of eyes -
I.’s poster - all blue - of the ideal cooperative living arrangement -

“Look,” she says - 
“Here’s a felt flower” -
and I see it in the poster -

X. Altar

J. had built an altar because she knew the building was closing -
lots of lace - flowers - a plate on it with parrots and other birds -
a panda made of paper mache - a goblet -

The bees are dying - plenty of them
belly up - dead against the altar,
lying in the fake flowers.

S. had been a bee-keeper - so some of her bees were still around.
There was also an article on facebook about small robotic
bees that would do their job.

Maybe they won’t notice and we can build a garden on the roof -
maybe we can build a window farm -
may we all have farms in heaven.

To the root strikers -
to the people who come by x - may we all have farms in heaven -
may the altar be the lost key - or the farm in heaven -

May J. be the last person here up on the roof -
may she be the altar builder - the welder - the weaver -
glass and textiles - and blinking lights - 

small LEDs woven into fabric -
small LEDs attached to robotic bees -

*

There’s fire on the roof - dayfires - so different from nightfires -
Day-farms - day fires - 
other things that don’t exist -

Forest in every direction - and the greenhouse
on the top of the mill,
and J. - J. saying - be the best of yourself.

J. volunteering at the church - J. turning the water
wheel and turning water into fire on the roof - 
felt into flowers - bees into robotic bees -
hardware into birds -

J. told me that she’s making an installation for Calvin Klein -
and that they’re assholes - they’re asking
that she combine glass and textile.

She’s sitting in front of the mirror.
I took a photograph of her with her goggles on
and the torch like a little tongue
licks the glass which looks like honey.

I put down my backpack and J. looks inside -
it’s glistening a little bit - “What is that?” - “I brought you - 
some materials” - I slowly start taking out the glass -

“I have something I want you to make” -
I take out one of the larger pieces of glass and it has
all the dust from the mill on it -

She looks through it and into me -
“Is this from the event?” - 
“Yes, it’s from the event”

“I want it to be something else now” - 
I take the key to the building from my pocket,
the last key other than hers,
and I press it into her hand -

V.'s upturned head looking at S.
winter-proofing the tent
in a crouch, P. filming the first speech
S., with upturned hands
J.'s haggard face, a skull
D. before he lost his house
S., every look skeptical
the march cutting the city
the march, and invisible march
the faces in the march
the faces of my companions
those that left
those that stayed
those that passed through
bottles thrown into the camp
curses hurled from cars
before it begins, stopping a knife-fight 
sirens knifing the wind
drunks stumbling in
drunks stumbling out
the rain rushing in
the rain draining out
the wind rushing in
the wind rushing out
black-wet boughs
green-wet grass
blood under M.'s nose
the blue-cold eyes of J.
the enfolding arms of A.
A.'s red beret 
A., always encouraging
A., with her arms open
everyone's adopted mother, A.
A. sleeps under the bridge
everyone looking for A.
V. setting up new tents
V. getting in new fights
V.'s face, hard and dark
B.'s long knife in his coat
the wind shifting winter
black mud and bare trees
D.'s large beard and blue eyes
a woman cradling a bird
a woman cradling a child
D.'s blue eyes, then the talk about the wars
D.'s blue beard soaked with blood
D.'s need is immense
repeating each other's words
the voices of my companions
leaves brushing the tents
rain against tent ceilings
a thin night raking leaves
towered over by monoliths
circled by unlit windows
J., laughing maniacally
force running under S.'s face
S., filled with belief
S., guiding the assembly
S., disappeared as well
S., with her buried grief
V. pulls down a tarp
D., before he lost his mind
M. sets up the schedule
J. smokes in the booth
A. handed me her keys, lost them twice
V., filled with regret
V., and his woman until she left
strangers in the encampment
fucking in the tents at night
us fucking anarchists
thinking to the ringing sirens
willing myself to sleep
to sleep in a city street
blood brought to a slow boil
the rest of the city disappears
the hum of the generator stirs the clouds
the hum of the generator stirs the night's fist
the exhalation of the generator
the night under the bricks under our feet
the moon caught in black flags
P. in his wheelchair, wheeling around
P. wheeling around with a white mask
because it's easy, everyone bullies P.
the eyes of A., soft, slightly pained
the eyes of A., unyielding
the divisions within the camp
one argument, then another
J., keeping us all together
J., keeping it all from falling apart
waking up feeling we could live anywhere
the trees and leaves
the trees and wind
a tin cup and lantern
our right to gather
to recognize strangers
rain on wet bark
a wet stone on bricks
forming up against a brutal element
the nation's pulse running under this stupid park
the collective threat
we threaten each other
sirens circling the park like two birds on fire
black mud where there used to be grass
black flags waving in the air
all my friends, wrapped in black flags
a small set of provisions
a cup of hot coffee and a plate of free food
the wind brushing the trees and earth
leaves that shift winter
speech that shifts winter
black-sky stars
the drunks walk in
S. says it's unsafe
lanterns in tents
footsteps of strangers
six blankets
security detail
a hand in a hand shook
a woman's hair in the wind
a woman's face, then the wind
A.'s sharp-cutting cough
rain on the tops of tarps
a bodylike line of light
one proposal, then another
camaraderie, then intrigue
to see the slow unbearable separation from the the city
to feel your thinking twisted to the group's purpose
to have no separation from the earth
to be burned out, to hate it
to miss it, to need to be there
to know you're needed by the suffering
to be unable to rid oneself of the suffering
neighborhoods of tents and lights
neighborhoods of light and lanterns
a liar trying to steal my equipment
a liar and his corroded teeth
lanterns swinging in the wind
lanterns light jokes on fire
lanterns in the assembly, lighters, lights
lanterns in our hands even when they're not in our minds
lanterns in our minds even when they're not in our hands
sitting under the tree singing, E.
E., playing guitar
E., stoic and unafraid
E., we acknowledge each other
a face parting fallen clouds
fear of baton, boot, brute force
the threat of the rubber bullet
the threat of the gas canister
always the threat of the boot in the night
always the threat of the incoming threat
always the threat of the incoming rock
always the threat, irrelevance
the soup people brought
the bread people baked
staying because its believed to be necessary
losing people every day, trying to hold out
to be a symbol in the field of living-symbols
to be a body to sacrifice to brute force
to feel afraid for the first time
to be obsessed, unable to let go
to feel cold, hunger, anger, threat
to meet resistance
to meet in the field of living symbols
living symbols walking over the mud
to be idiots
empty tents
snow
D. hands out food to strangers
needing to get away, needing to be there
J., knowing he'll get his proposal through
P.'s acidic question-jokes
J., somehow never cold
A., raising her hands
J., shaking his head
missing S. unbearably
S., facilitating the assembly
S., with her hands in the air
S., with her face in her hands
standing in a circle, discussing security
a man dropped off a bag of food, then left
the air against my ear
leaves under my pillow
a bird flies over the camp
air coming out of our mouths like ghosts

Delta_Ark developed The Beacon as an on-site installation for Occupy Providence. During Delta_Ark’s numerous visits to the encampment, Delta_Ark noticed that passers-by continued to remark that they did not understand why the protesters were there. The movement was not a single-issue movement, like ‘end the Vietnam war’; the movement highlighted many of the ways in which an oligarchic faction of the country (the ‘1%’) were gaming the political and economic system. Some protesters were protesting because they had been foreclosed on, others because their health insurance had refused to reimburse them and others still because of crippling student debt. There were many reasons people were occupying; you could see how this could be confusing for someone walking by the encampment for the first time, looking at all the different signs and stations. To remedy this problem, Delta Ark created a communication system that allowed protesters to communicate their reasons for being at the encampment, one clear reason at a time.

Consider Freetown Christiania. Consider Kowloon Walled City. Or Slab City. Consider what these kinds of spaces add to the life of the city. And the new forms of relationships they enable. Do we try to demolish them? Try to incorporate them in some way? Regulate them? Leave them to be? Do we evict them? What are we losing when we lose these spaces? Could there not be some more enlightened form of governance at the level of the city that allows them to be, while also checking in? We don’t want another Ghost Ship (there’s a history of fires in places like these), but we don’t want a sanitized boring city, either. Squatter’s rights are important. As are, probably even more importantly, the ability to build Social Centers, the kind they have in Europe. After Occupy, a group of occupiers set up the Omni Commons, in Oakland; a permanent collective of collectives. Maybe this points the way, and maybe it also points the way for internet based/initiated movements to maintain a long-term presence?