Cursive Binary: Legacy (2021, Edition of 1)
A multimedia palimpsest in which human verse is embedded in its transhuman translation. Based on a poem from Stiles’ book Technelegy, with original music by Kris Bones.
LEGACY
What will humans look like in a hundred thousand years?
Our deep descendants
will be nothing like us,
think nothing like us.
They won’t have our eyes
or nose or hair or wisdom
teeth, our love of books,
our languishing language,
DNA spelled the same way.
Not our thin, frail skin,
hot temper, tendency to sneeze
in sunshine. But they’ll have
our sun, this same sun,
under which nothing
and everything changes.
Hearts that beat with our
old blood, swarming
with tiny bots made by us,
gifted to the future.
And when they bleed
it won’t mean the end,
for they will live a long,
long time, maybe forever,
turning over these symbols,
sifting distant echoes of their
mothers, fathers, creators.
They’ll be so beautiful,
like any children —
such familiar strangers.