The network must be built

Maxime Garcia Diaz

What is a computer? Has the American century ended? Everything dies, dies, dies. The city, the internet, __ ______. The network must be built is a hybrid poetry collection, simultaneously published in English and Dutch, which mixes different forms and genres in order to narrate a disjointed history. This polymorphous collection roams like a misshapen travel log past Dutch data centers and silicon America, the Amsterdam of childhood and the college towns of the Midwest. The network must be built is a personal investigation into the dead screen, the slow cancellation of the city, the failure of language and representation, the mad scene and the squat, the servers and the social housing market, loss and resistance. This computer speaks English because its bones are American; this machine kills fascists because it wants to kill. Everything dies, except Neopets.