This piece is part of a larger collaborative work, an interactive, infrastructure-related installation soon to be presented in the upcoming xpub group exhibition (27-30 June, S/ash Gallery, Rotterdam). I also like it as a stand-alone piece, so this is how I present it here. (Images and details regarding the installation will follow in another post.)

The poem is performative (improvisational reading) and list-based, simulating computerized speech: a form fitting the content. It makes visible the infrastructural networks that mirror nature in the organic way they form and expand. Despite their efficiency and our continuous effort to advance these man-made systems that sustain contemporary living, our dependence on them often leads to feelings of isolation and alienation, instead of fulfillment and unity. 

The imagery is a raw ffmpeg rendering of a busy city scene (Rotterdam), reduced to flickering pixels and shifting fragments. Buildings dissolve into patterns and this digital breakdown blurs and performs the boundary between technological grids and natural growth. 

Ultimately, Infrastructure invites the viewer to reflect on dependence, identity, and interconnectedness, inhabiting the fragile tension between systemic framework and lived experience.

Infrastructure Infrastructure Infrastructure

roads railways

bridges tunnels

water supply sewers

electrical grids telecommunication

do you communicate?

internet connectivity

do you feel connected?

commodities interrelated systems

services essential to enable sustain or

                                     enhance

societal living conditions

do you feel enabled? do you feel sustained?

do you feel enhanced?

hard infrastructure

physical networks

necessary for the function of a modern

industrial society

roads bridges railways

soft infrastructure

education

statistics

parks and recreation

law enforcement emergency services

Emergency Emergency Emergency

Infrastructure

synonyms

base framework

infrastructure as in foundation

noun strong matches footing groundwork

root support

do you feel supported? who do you support?

do you feel rooted? who do you root for?