An Interface for a Fractal Landscape

by Ed Steck

Poetry. AN INTERFACE FOR A FRACTAL LANDSCAPE is an exploration of potential networking between organic life and digitally recreated nature on a virtual terrain. Taking its cues from a variety of media, including concrete poetry, artists' books, science fiction, nature poetry, and information science, the book follows the experience of an inorganic life form attempting to recreate an organic relationship between organism and landscape on an outmoded server in the era of post-anthropocene collapse. slime molds, cat avatars, organic toads, digital nature, hollow mountains, water textures, archival crawler units, warm baths, interactive maps, inventory management, and poetry.

Genres: Poetry

192 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2019

Reviews

[Evan Pincus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reminded me of nothing so much as Christian Bök’s Crystallography (this is one of the most “Canadian distribution by Coach House Books” things I have ever read in my life), but I thought this had a much better handle on the language of speculative fiction - not that this doesn’t sometimes disappear up its own ass (buttocks handsomely illustrated as two adjacent cylinders in one of many quietly funny moments), but thanks to the obsessive focus on the roles and meanings of individual words and phrases, the tech-gobbledygook-cum-secular-zen-meditation typically comes across as fully self-aware even (and maybe especially) when it’s almost complete nonsense; of course it’s a little silly when the primary narrator experiences infinite “self-similar ejaculations” in the throes of an orgasm it’s unequipped to describe, just like it’s a little silly when a cat does some adorable meaningless-seeming gesture and expects their person to understand, much less play along! Though couched in what often can feel like a simultaneous arch parody of junky sci-fi and jargon-heavy theory-fiction and set out explicitly as a post-human text focusing on global dynamic systems and big data, it’s ultimately an incredibly intimate book about highly interior feelings: how can I use the conditions here to understand the conditions elsewhere? How can I make sense of another living thing based on my own self-knowledge? What tools do I have, how do I use them, how and why might I transgress their limits? What could that even look like? Would a reader take it as “a work of (somewhat inept and amateurishly composed) short science fiction,” or “a pioneering work of calculated-theory and fractalism?” I ultimately found it shelved under poetry!

[Bob Comparda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wonder, "Is the mountain sentient? The palm tree?"

This book was like being inside the mind of an artificial intelligence exploring an artificial landscape. Hybrid poetry and computer code. Patterns and textures. Digital mountains and generated landscapes. Cats.

[John Madera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ed Steck's An Interface for a Fractal Landscape somehow makes programming's immateriality materialize, that is, it makes it matter through its deft fusion of genres, cryptic graphics, and "junk" code, the post-apocaplyptic, no, post-human narrative woven throughout suffusing the whole text with dread.

[Anton Relin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A technobabble fever dream, delivered from the point of view of an "archiver unit" existing in a lofi second life clone. Absolutely unique and absolutely worth the read

[Qonita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kacau. Ambyar. Trippy abis. Every session was a whirlpool to another dimension. Reading this was a bodily experience. Have you ever heard a song you resonate with so much your soul got yanked a bit you actually need to pause because it's that overwhelming and you need to breathe? Persis. THE INTENSITY. I was overwhelmed every 30-40 or to the point of needing a break - eyes teary, breathe quickens and all. Half of it is just robotic gibberish. But how puzzling it is plays a huge part in how it messes up with me (in a GOOD GREAT MAGIC MUSHROOMY WAY). Still, it's the most transcendental words have ever been. I read this over the span of 5 months. Antara irit-irit biar ga cepet abis, sama TAKUT. At all times, I was still recovering from the mental vortex every session has been, you know *eyeballs shaking*. Beneran harus nyari waktu juga untuk menyesap-nyesap bukunya dengan khidmat.
Mungkin damagenya segede itu buat aku pribadi karena membaca ini rasanya kaya menghayati Eden (karakter di AU aku) yang sedang terlahir kembali dengan indera-indera manusianya dan mulai mengingat memori-memori 5000 tahun lalu dari kehidupannya di bumi gitu. Mana BGMnya cucok meong lagi, Music for a Forgotten Futurenya Mogwai. Jadi berasa 3D banget sensasinya.