Looking, witnessing, surveying, observing...

by Ada Ada Ada, 20/11/2025

This poem was written for the group exhibition RING/CAM Volume 1 in Copenhagen, which also featured works by Zach Blas, Hannibal Dahl and Ruba Al-Sweel. The show was curated by 2C1C (2 curators 1 collapse).

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A poem arranged in a circle. The poem reads: Twenty women under a bridge in Guilin. Twenty ring lights illuminate them in the underpass. Twenty phone cameras capture the scene. Looking at Reddit comments. Unlikely_Awareness58 · 3y ago. “Definitely cyberpunk”. Deleted user · 3y ago. “Dystopian as fuck”. Inspiration_ · 3y ago. “What an odd timeline we're in”. Witnessing the narrative. They geolocate themselves near rich men. Supposedly. The women are forced to work by men. Allegedly. They are subject to the story. Perpetually. Young men deep in a coltan mine in Congo. The supervisor asks one if he is being forced to work. He pauses, looks away and says it's his free will. Looking at the edit history. Wikipedia · 17y ago. “Coltan is used in phones, DVD players, and PCs”. Wikipedia · 6y ago. “Coltan is used in electric cars and electronic products”. Wikipedia · Today. “Coltan is being investigated for use in quantum processors”. Witnessing its growing impact. I'm thinking of Channel 4's camera, which enters the mine. I'm considering the phone which shows the video. I'm reflecting on their tantalum capacitors. Sam Altman is stealing GPUs from Target. Five (six?) rabbits jump on a trampoline at night. Thousands of children say or do impossible things. Surveying the history of media. Barricades on rue Saint-Maur · 177 years ago. “The first photo is used to illustrate a newspaper story”. Nam June Paik · 51 years ago. “Electronic super highways will become a huge enterprise”. Amirul Shah or Zila Abka · 1+ year ago. “AI-generated 'All Eyes on Rafah' image goes viral”. Observing the dying. Our sense of reality is experiencing death throes. Paik's dream, executed in Silicon Valley. Filicide is a parent deliberately killing a child. Some people may find this post upsetting. We use technology to identify content. It doesn't go against our Community Standards. Surveying my own feed. in_transitu_ig · 2y ago. “Changing gender on IG didn't work, so how about squeezing my boobs?”. in_transitu_ig · 1y ago. “Dear @instagram, I would like my tits to be banned, please”. in_transitu_ig · October 2025. “MFW trying to make sense of the IG content moderation algorithm”. Observing the incoherence. The artist tries to find the limits. The artist tries to break the limits. The artist is limited in her attempts.

Publications

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    Poem for exhibition. RING/CAM Volume 1 @ Softer Space, Copenhagen, Denmark.
CO2e emitted: ~0.00g