Women I Know
Dark and funny, sparkling with ideas—it’s thrilling that the future of Australian fiction is held in such talented hands.
Ben Walter
Women I Know
Katerina Gibson
Winner of the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Pacific Region)
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For my mother
I walked to the edge of the road, and knew that I had never gazed down into such chasms before.
– Vertigo, W.G. Sebald
Glitches in The Algorithm
When I first started work on The Algorithm I’d wake, with the help of an app, to the sound of chirping at the precise moment that the sun rose over the horizon and ombre-d my bedroom in peaches. Next, I’d pick up my phone, search for smoothies in the muddy-green spectrum—kale, coconut milk, spinach, bananas—put on a playlist, either Morning Vibes or Pop n Fresh, pair my headphones, turn them to silent, and then fall asleep for two more hours. On my second waking, I’d brew a coffee, pour a glass of water, and roll a cigarette that I smoked through the kitchen window, while, with my location off, I looked up bus times to the gym where I paid seven dollars a week—a membership I signed up for in a fit of optimism before my work on The Algorithm began. While I can only imagine this gym being filled with wide-shouldered men of myriad sweat patterns and foreheads crumpled to varying wrinkle depths (puzzled bewilderment on the sit-up machine, concerned knot between the eyes at the bench press, crevasse-like worrying at their own form in the mirror), this small expense ultimately came to benefit the overall path of The Algorithm.
I’d stub out my cigarette, take a shit, pour the glass of water into whichever plant looked the thirstiest, and then leave the house to catch the 8:46 to work. While on the train I’d put on Workout Beats that I’d then spend the journey considering; in the morning commute claustrophobia the music to me did not seem made for human consumption, but a robotic rave, glitching and looping as if incidental, computer-generated.
From the train station to work I’d scroll and tap indiscriminately, without looking down, letting The Algorithm do the work for me, a method that always resulted—whenever I checked my likes during work hours—in a pictorial spread of cocktail parties, bikini pictures, sunsets, selfies in geometrically intricate sunglasses, and aerial shots of aesthetic cheese platters. Over time, as my work on The Algorithm progressed, this content shifted to include pictures of engagement rings, dogs, babies, small children better dressed than me. Not all at once, but gradually, as She—my algorithmic self—became, in my mind, more maternal. But as I say, that came later, as my idea of Her evolved; phase one of my work stayed grounded in emulating socialites and fashion students. I walked and scrolled and double-tapped. There was a nice rhythm to this that gave me a satisfaction, a meditation for the day ahead.
Throughout my work hours I’d keep my location securely off. Although, even shoved into the bowels of my bag, my phone caught snippets of my conversation. I worked at an outgoing call centre, conducting a government survey that started as a ‘proactive response’ to the protestors that now took to the streets most weeks. It was hard to eliminate this aspect of my life from The Algorithm. I tried leaving my phone in another part of the office, ‘forgot’ it on a charger in the kitchen, but then I was exposing it to the element of rogue and gossipy co-workers, whose conversations I could not control and which often involved confidential survey answers. It simply never crossed my mind to turn it off. As consequence, I had trouble recalibrating Her in the eyes of The Algorithm, politically speaking. At first this didn’t concern me, or didn’t really occur to me. Truthfully, at that point I didn’t know what I was doing, or I’d convinced myself I didn’t know. In what I now see as the beginning stages of my work on The Algorithm, self-deception was the defining feature.
A denial: when I first started my work, I did so because I really thought I would go to the gym. That this week I would not let vegetables in my crisper rot. That listening to workout music was just one step away from actually working out, and et cetera. I believed then that I would catch up to the algorithmic self I was putting out in the world. That I was simply researching the possibilities of my day before selecting a different future. I didn’t realise then what I was doing—I was making art.
After work I’d catch the train home, headphones on with nothing playing, watching my reflection in the window while it resolved and unresolved itself as the train passed through tunnels, by large dark buildings. From my station I would walk to the bottle shop where I’d purchase a flask-sized bottle of whiskey. Occasionally, if I had the money and the mood hit me, I’d go to Best Chinese Takeaway next door and buy sweet and sour pork or stir-fried noodles. All these types of purchases—takeaway, alcohol, cigarettes—I bought with cash, out of two crisp hundred-dollar notes I withdrew from the ATM at the start of every week; I later labelled these in my banking app ‘Brunch and Coffee’.
I would then walk myself and my dinner, liquid or solid, to the park, where I’d sit atop the hill as the sun appeared to grow larger approaching the horizon, and watch the scene below. Joggers of neon-striped shoes swept up and down the river, swerving strolling families and other neon-clad men on bikes and men on bikes with megaphones, themselves conducting the rowers gliding along the river behind them, themselves, the rowers, swerved by the black swans making their daily pilgrimage up the Maribyrnong to nibble on stonewort at the water’s edge. On the bank, tan border collies chased smaller dogs of evident psychological issue; large African, Asian and Caucasian families of complex structures barbecued; in the playground children swung and leaped, leaped and swung, heedless of their growing bones; and closest to myself, in the shadow of ginkgo trees, young couples in near copulation lay oblivious to the children, dogs, swans, and et cetera.
While I watched this I would sit almost completely still, only raising my flask or chopsticks to my mouth, and—perhaps because of a combination of this stillness and my vantage point on the hill that miniaturised the people below, making them appear like intricate figurines—feel that I was outside time. Or rather that I was participating in it differently. The toing and froing of the scene below brought on vertiginous time: on a molecular level I was aware of the sensation of time passing faster at my heightened position; the emptiness of my mind allowed my body to experience a scientific phenomenon that would usually take the stature of a Himalayan Mountain—as opposed to the steady incline of Footscray Park hill—to observe. Although this, on reflection, sounds dangerously hippyish. Much more likely, I was simply experiencing a prolonged form of dissociation.
Whatever the cause of this feeling, it would inevitably end as the pedestrians thinned, picnic blankets were shaken out, rowers returned their boats to the boatshed, and dogs and children were—with difficultly—extracted from the park. As the people dissipated and the scene below quickened, clicked back into natural time, I was left disappointed. The park in its emptiness a blank canvas; it was the people and movement that interested me. There’s a series of artworks I saw online once called All the People on Google Earth, satellite images of places with all but the people removed. This was during a time when I still did things like seek out art, and perhaps because it was one of the last pieces of art I consensually experienced since beginning work on The Algorithm—before I began working on my own art—I’ve found myself at times mentally removing the non-human elements of a scene, trying to see people interacting with one another sans context. And so, when, on my hill, the people emptied the scene below, I’d be left in acute isolation—alone, in a blank space. In the next moment, re-entering time and place, the scene before me resolved itself: I was a woman alone in a park at night, and I would then leave.
When I got home I’d scroll through videos of pus being exhumed—a fringe consequence for those who aspired to pure beautification, difficult to iron out, the dark side of The Algorithm’s moon—ribbons of discharge shooting out of unsuspecting blackheads, or squelching continuously from horrific pits, interrupted sometimes with the before-and-after of a nose job or lip injection gone awry. I would scroll for hours until I was at least as disgusted by the content as I was in myself, then masturbate and fall asleep.
All the People in on Pier 39, Jenny Odell
I’m not sure entirely when the second stage of my work on The Algorithm began. Where it is that the delineating line between the first and second phase can be drawn, when I realised what I was doing.
It would be simple to retroactively ascribe a single moment, an epiphany. Perhaps it was watching my face superimposed on a scene through the train window one afternoon. I could say that when the train entered a tunnel, the window a mirror, I ‘saw’ myself, came into a sudden moment of awareness.
But the truth is, the second stage of my work on The Algorithm began gradually, as I began to go off script.
Have you or members of your immediate family been affected by unprecedented weather events caused by the seasonal weather depression of El Niño and/or local arsonists?
Pardon?
If so, have you or any members of your immediate family been relocated, temporarily evacuated or removed in situ?
I—yes.
Relocated, temporarily evacuated, or removed in situ?
We lived in a school gym for a week if that’s what you mean.
Were the services provided adequate and/or was the accommodation you returned to fit for living?
I mean, my house was still standing if that’s what you’re asking. But everything was ruined and—I mean no, the gym was crowded and unregulated, a woman was—
Thank you for taking time out of your day to complete this valuable survey.
Wait! […]
Have you or members of your immediate family been affected by unprecedented weather events caused by the seasonal weather depression of El Niño and/or local arsonists?
Oh fuck you […]
Have you or members of your immediate family been affected by unprecedented weather events caused by the seasonal weather depression of El Niño and/or local arsonists?
Funny way of saying climate change.
A mental loop-the-loop if there ever was one.
Pardon?
Yes or no?
I—Yes, Jesus.
If so, have you or any members of your immediate family been relocated, temporarily evacuated or removed in situ?
We’ve been relocated. What does ‘removed in situ’ mean? Rescued? Relocated after being rescued?
Were the services provided adequate and/or was the accommodation you were relocated to fit for living?
No. What’s your name, hon, how did you end up with this job?
What aspects of your relocation did you find inadequate?
Everything, to put it mildly. I know a lot of people were doing the best in a bad situation, we were stuck on a boat for days, and then my daughter caught a cold that didn’t get treated and now she’s wheezing when she sleeps. The place we’re in now? Previous occupants are still hanging around: rats, everywhere. Everything that has gone right—meals, extra clothes and blankets, chargers—that’s been down to the people here. The community, nothing to do with the government.
Thank you for taking time out of your day to complete this valuable survey.
God love, I hope you find a more fulfil […]
Have you or members of your immediate family been affected by unprecedented weather events caused by the seasonal weather depression of El Niño and/or local arsonists?
Mum! […]
Have you or members of your immediate family been affected by unprecedented weather events caused by the seasonal weather depression of El Niño and/or local arsonists?
Who did you say this is?
If so, have you or any members of your immediate family been relocated, temporarily evacuated or removed in situ?
I mean, obviously yeah. You know where you’re calling, right?
No, actually.
What?
Not the foggiest, where are you?
What?
Thank you for your time.
[…]
Have you or members of your immediate family been affected by unprecedented weather events caused by the seasonal weather depression of El Niño and/or local arsonists?
Are you fucking kidding me mate? […]
Have you or members of your immediate family been affected by unprecedented weather events caused by the seasonal weather depression of El Niño and/or local arsonists?
How can something be both seasonal and unprecedented?
Hello?
[…]
Have you or members of your immediate family been affected by recent events?
Yup.
If so, have you or any members of your immediate family been relocated, temporarily evacuated or removed in situ?
We were evacuated. We were meant to be relocated, but I couldn’t do it. They wanted to take us up north. Up closer to the tropics. Maniacs.
Were the services provided adequate and/or was the accommodation you were relocated to fit for living?
You’re a riot, aren’t you. What was I just saying? Fucking terrible, obviously. And the way people act when this shit happens. No fucking humanity, everyone for themselves. People would step over their own grandmother. I’m camping in my yard—not one of the neighbours has even stopped by to see if we’re alive. We have a kid, mind you, although he’s gone to his grandparents with his mother now. And my dog, Benji, gone. In the thick of it all. Just fucked off into the bush. I thought maybe he just got lost, confused. He’s pretty good at looking after himself, but still, he should be back by now.
Jesus Christ.
What?
Sorry about your dog.
Thanks love—you’re just about the only person who is.
You never know, he might come back.
[Sigh] I don’t reckon.
Thank you for taking the time out of your day to complete this valuable survey.
[…]
Have you or members of your immediate family been affected by recent events?
Who hasn’t?
Sorry, um… If so, have you or any of your family had to move?
You’re calling us on our home phone, aren’t you? So yeah, we’re fine, but I reckon we’re the only ones who are, really.
Oh that’s good. Is your dog okay?
What?
Just call me curious.
Yeah, our dog is—how did you know we had a dog?
Thanks for completing this valuable survey.
[…]
Hello. This call is to check on the status of the residents of this address.
Mary?
You are not in any immediate danger?
Yeah—no. I mean, it was scary, but we’re okay. Very lucky—who’s this?
You have supplies and access to water?
Um, yeah. Well, at least for now we do.
And you’re—is your day going well?
What the fuck is happening?
Thank you for your time.
[…]
No matter what I did outside work hours to digitally carve a picture of Her, as long as I stuck even somewhat to the script at work, the outside world refracted itself back into The Algorithm. In between svelte blondes in bikinis and raised glasses of Aperol spritz distorting sunsets, there’d be links to articles about the latest calamity, with detailed explanations of why Shell or Gina Rinehart or Jeff Bezos was to blame, profiles on cleared land masses, bleached coral, prolific protestors, all of which on my walk to work I would inadvertently tap, causing similar content to reoccur. It wasn’t that I didn’t want The Algorithm to imagine Her as generous, but I certainly didn’t want Her to be genuinely socially and environmentally conscious—too much of a downer. The trajectory of The Algorithm was giving her a feedback loop of social consciousness that fed into cynicism that fed into genuine learning that fed into deeper social consciousness, and et cetera. I did not want her to appear enlightened, intellectually. For instance, it was okay for The Algorithm to think she’d like heart-warming footage of wombats being saved, but if it went as far as to suggest she’d be interested in how the government had failed to protect the wombats in the first place, then She needed recalibration.