Redactie | 29 Februari 2004Human Caller Detected (english)
HUMAN CALLER DETECTED
Telecommunications satellites: angels of steel
Fax machines: tactical weapons
Modems: messengers for the mute
Call me and my voice mail activates
After the beep, you can speak...
to an appliance: hear your voice blind echo
I jog along the digital highway
lend a hand with the new infrastructure
color in the future of air-raid shelters
The audience is losing face
my words stammer a chip-driven story
thanks to the energy of nuclear plants
But somewhere on the planet people still sow seed
outside houses in fields of soil
a child is born to parents without watches
I save this video memory to disk
and hope there be no war
.
Translated from the Dutch by Sam Garrett
Dutch original: Human Caller Detected
Poem for fax, published by the Facsimile Foundation 1994
Published on Letterboard BBS Amsterdam The Netherlands 1994.
This poetry by Diana Ozon was the first Dutch poetry that was presented on a world wide performance with live video-link-chain between the Technology Museum in Delft, the Dutch Design Institute in Amsterdam, SCAN in Groningen, The Netherlands, Susan Kozel in London, Great Britain and the McLuhan Institute in Toronto, Canada. On October 5, 1995 for The World Series on Culture and Technology.
Human Caller Detected is published in Dutch in:
Diana Ozon
Bronwater
Gedichten
Uitgeverij Passage
ISBN 90 5452 128 7
Go to Bronwater