IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE?
the back of the internet
Your random internet questions answered… by art
6 artists try to answer the big and impossible questions
What is love? What does it mean to be British? What if I fall?
I chose the question: Is there anybody out there?
A commission by BBC Arts and Google Arts and Culture goes live online today!
Check out all 6 brilliant films and additional material on BBC Arts and Google
And follow the tag #youaskedartanswered
We were also asked to choose just 6 items from the google archives to answer our question
Hard to choose! I selected David Bowie and bees and great women scientists and more...
This work was broadcast on TV for the first time on BBC Four (29.09.2019)
Poem written and performed by Salena Godden
Film made with thanks to Michelle Tofi and Phil Macdonald
It is a Northern Town production
Produced with thanks to Edward Morgan
Make up by Michelle Strain
I enjoyed this project, hope you do too!
Thank you! sgxx
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| BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes |
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| GOOGLE: https://artsandculture.google.com |
the back of the internet
I just went around the back of the internet.
I must have pressed a wrong button
but suddenly this other page came up
It was like being on the other side of a mirror
and being on the other side looking in
I was on the inside of the other side
and you were all there staring into your screens
You had goldfish bowl faces, glowing white and ghostly
illuminated by interwebs and the information mines
which shone like gold in your glittering eyes
I grinned and waved
but you’d never see me here,
not even, if you used your binoculars
I just went around the back of the internet
I quite liked it
and I might go back
It was dimly lit by a pale dusty old sun
The air smelled of wires
old tooth fillings and burnt plastic
There were no windows or doors
It was a ghost land, a dried out sea bed
a gritty desert and wasteland
I was outside, on the other side
I found two dead bees
Not one, but two
And I wondered if the bees were friends
when they were on the other side.
Then I pushed an abandoned
shopping trolley about for a bit
it had a wonky wheel
I just went around the back of the internet
It was derelict and as out-dated
as a page of a real newspaper
I took a selfie of me
me on the other side
around the back of the internet
I walked for a bit and kicked a rock down a hole
There were no buttons to push
and there was nothing to like or favourite
It was boring #hashtag boring #hashtag other side
Please retweet
I went around the back of the internet
It was just my feet doing the walking thing
to nowhere and into nothing and for nobody
I was on my own
with my own head doing thinking
which was a bit like tweeting
but all in my own head box
and on a timeline only I could see
and I couldn’t share it
or change my profile pic
to the selfie of me
me on the other side
and around the back by the bins.
It started to water from the ceiling.
Fat drops fell from a film of sky above,
Well, needless to say, I didn’t like that,
water falling from up there
onto my actual face
hashtag #rain
I just went around the back of the internet
I might go there again
but its alright
I'm back online now
(C) Salena Godden / 2019
around the back of the shoot
***
love poems books art music
festivals vinyl poetry stories
CD's zines gigs film radio posters t-shirts
spoken word pamphlets love love
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