n Lines and Changing is an ongoing digital poetry project that arises from nearly 15 years of living in Shanghai, and which I use the expanding Shanghai Metro system as a compositional tool which both guides explorations of the city and which shapes the composition of a digital poem. I use chance procedures to determine destinations within Shanghai’s sprawling Metro system (currently 506 stations, with more opening soon, and 19 active lines, with more planned). I then do an “algorithmic walk” determined by chance procedures. The goal is to “write the city” in line with its constant, dynamic, ongoing change. I do not intend to “finish” in the conventional sense, but keep it “open” as I take new trips, and as new lines and stations are added, and as collaborators join (including, eventually, via a public app). I used this grant to take it from its current proof-of-concept stage and to launch it publicly, both online and in talks, readings and lectures. The grant helped me to develop and expand the site (adding documentation, photography, video and sound recordings, a Chinese translation “toggle,” and a critical essay).
nLines and Changing
Writing the Shanghai Metro System to the End