Epos der Maschine (The Epic of the Machine, see review in interfictions.com) is a piece about humankind's relation to techology. From the aesthetic point of view it is what Robert Kendall would call a kinetic visual poem. Here words themselves receive an additional significance by their presentation in space and time. If we for example click on the word 'Maschine' it produces words which pushes the earlier words away, as technology displaces nature. The motion of the words is predetermined, and we soon realize that this piece not only adresses technology as a doubtful god that controls us, but also lets us feel that fact. This creates discomfort, as we begin to feel the pressure exercised by technology. And indeed we are under its thumb. Everything is programmed, reading is not as free as it used to be with books or hypertext. One remarkable effect is when words, which call technology into question, arre themselves formed into a question mark. The visual realisation separates all words but one from a privious one, namely the word 'truth', with a background like a barcode. This might lead us to the conclusion that one can price and buy truth. This separation - or opposition?- is underlined by different fonts and, more importantly, by the fact that these words are moving. It seems as if the question is alive, whereas the word 'truth' stays stiff and rigid. The kinetic aspect is itself based on the fact that in the digital realm visual poetry employs the syntax not only of text and space, but also of time. There is a fourth syntax in the game: interaction. If we click on the word 'truth' the other words disappear behind or within the word 'truth'. This can be read ambiguously: doubt has escaped into unshakeable truth or truth has swallowed, what called it into question. However we read the removal of that seperation or opposition we soon realisize that it only lasts a short time. Once we move the mouse these words reappear. The words adhere to the word truth, they follow truth whereever it goes, and they can be 'eaten' again, but never erased. Once a question has arisen, the message would seem to be, one can't get rid of it any more, one will encounter it again and again, provided there is movement in the discourse. This way of playing with words must be distinguished from the play with words we encounter in projects like Mark Napier's Shredder or the Discoder by exonemo. Whereas those projects perform the deconstruction of representation of language, "The Epic of the Machine" doubles the representation of language by constrasting it with an additional visual semantic. Needless to say that the latter makes a deeper impact since it provides a certain message behind the message of deconstruction itself.