CAPTCHA Poem@
By Tina Escaja (aka Alm@ Pérez)
This CAPTCHA Poem@ belongs to a larger “oleatory” poem/project titled “Mar y virus / Virus and the Sea,” in which humans, poetry and technology intersect to address the COVID pandemic. The original CAPTCHA acronym is therefore transferred into a new ontology of inclusion and exchange, redefined as “Completely Automated Public test to Tie Computers and Humans as Allies.” Under a constant expectation of “not touching,” this new paradigm also allows for both distance and connection, a paradox not exempt from anxiety within an environment under siege.
The multimodal components of this poem@ CAPTCHA include QR codes inviting to “share your COVID story” that I posted around cities in both English and Spanish to collect testimonies for this project. Hence, QR codes blended with COVID paraphernalia that became oddly familiar, such as used gloves on the ground and requests for masks to enter buildings, etc. In a way, the city became an eerie “installation” involving humans, codes and the virus.
The anchor for this CAPTCHA poem@ was, in fact, a collective exhibition titled “Messages from the Anthropocene.” My segment, “Mar y virus / Virus and the Sea,” overpopulated the gallery with COVID 19 stickers, QR codes (extended to the city), video, poetry, and AR options, in an attempt to overwhelm and reconfigure our global relationship with technology, humanity, and the environment, all implicitly “tested” by this CAPTCHA interface.
