System Weavers

Author’s Notes

System Weavers is a spiral-nonlinear epic poem. In writing the text, I experimentally merged the literary styles of autobiography, science fiction, re-mythologisation, and techniques of cut-up assemblage. 

The project was lived, envisioned and written between the end of 2020 and extended into the middle of 2023. An influencing question I was seeking to understand was; how can I cultivate a sense of self, to know that I am the one making the decisions about transitioning and not doing it out of reaction or seeking an external sense of belonging? 

The epic poem consists of nine chapters, entangling intra-relational and internal transitions. These transitions focus on investigating how I may inhabit and {re}claim a neurodiverse and trans subjecthood; the remembrance of deliberate, accidental and mysterious transitions of intra-relationality and self-understandings. {Imperatives I set before myself, prior to considering myself ready to even begin seriously contemplating gender-affirming medical transition}. 

Throughout the epic I speculate and interrogate how these aforementioned transitions might occur whilst remaining subjected to systemic structures controlled by techno-scientific capitalism, whose current transforming capabilities not only can seek to, but will be able to eliminate genetic variations via CRISPR. 

I have situated the poem within a future-contemporarily of the The Grey Steel Lands, a globalised metropolis immersed in dystopian coercive control. Within this temporality, The Aeaea Institute is training the Hope-Keepers to code Aquatic Dreams - a strategy to subdue The Pulsating Shadows.

The epic poem emerges from within a concept I have been artistically examining since 2021; how does one create plausible futures? In the poem I warp the binary between utopian and dystopian speculations, to explore the nuanced coexistence of violence and whimsical beauty. The text delves into the intricate interplay between narrative and feeling, illuminating their role in shaping one's sense of self. It aligns itself within a lineage of tales that transcend time, examining how narrative and feeling serve as tools for comprehending different modalities of being and states of existence. 

Key influences on the poem's structure are "The Odyssey" by Emily Wilson and "The Conference of the Birds" by Farid ud-Din Attar. The poem also draws from a diverse range of sources, as acknowledged in the Notes & Bibliography. By envisioning potential future-making and myth-making {System Updates} aspires to contribute to contemporary literature, probing into futures, questioning at a seemingly hopeless, empty and directionless one. 

Ultimately, System Weavers is a book about transitions, it is a libation for the ones born without a blueprint, coordinates, maps, directives, but with a compass in hand(s) - navigating towards praxises of self-consent and intra-dependency. 

This project was received funding from Creative Victoria - Creative Projects Fund, and was received mentoring from Manisha Anjali.

The manuscript is currently under publisher review.