Category: Imaginary Cities: PC Bangs
In 2005 I spent four months living and working in Seoul, Republic of Korea, thanks to the University of Melbourne’s Asialink programme. During my residency, I visited approximately 40 PC방 (PC bang, Internet gaming rooms) and ‘live-wrote’ a series of prose poems about imaginary cities. Combined digital and print reissue scheduled for 2025.
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imaginary cities: coni —
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2 min read
City of sleepy subways and swift downstrokes. City of empty apartments and overcrowded hostels. A city without inhabitants, only visitors. Disgruntled in their winter jackets, following memorised but outdated itineraries, tourists wander but do not take photographs. Information is posted on streetcorners but it has been superannuated. City of scripts and small change. Sweet rays…
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imaginary cities: cloni —
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2 min read
Downtown in the city of greige skylines: muskrats grope for cinnamon oranges in the shadows of a giant air-conditioning outlet. Who can see, who can ever tell. I yawned through the catalogue of an important import-export agency and then left the quiet surrounds of the riverside precinct for the subway station. Here, one finds the…
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imaginary cities: capa —
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3 min read
Autumn in the city of snow-stolen leaves. City of donkey’s eggs. City of the never-sleeping conduits, of seasonal employment as a street-painter. Reporting for duty, I am issued with a broom and a facsimile of a work of art. I am told that I must re-create this work of art by sweeping selected leaves from…
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imaginary cities: cadu —
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2 min read
Lost city of the broken draft, Cadu is a pile of turnips rotting in the moonlight, begging for a trundle. Sagacious as a small pea, its typical inhabitant wears a crown upon his head to hold his mirrors in. While the powers of the crown have been disabled, still its physical properties bear mentioning. In…
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imaginary cities: basi —
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2 min read
Go back to Basi. Get silly fresh. Tidy your hair. Check that every memory you can recall is actually yours. You may not get another chance to protest at the passing of time with such rigour. In Basi, where all the men wear shoulder pads, hoaxes are committed on a daily basis. Don’t be worried,…