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== History ==
{{vedi anche|Arte generativa}}
AThe definitiondefinitions and history of generative art is often theserve preferredas the reference for describing the origins of generative literature.<ref>{{Cita web|url=http://hybridpedagogy.org/what-is-generative-literature-introducing-the-generative-literature-project/|titolo=What is Generative Literature? Introducing “The Generative Literature Project”|autore=Mia Zamora and Matt Jacobi|data=2015-07-19|lingua=en|urlarchivio=https://web.archive.org/save/http://hybridpedagogy.org/what-is-generative-literature-introducing-the-generative-literature-project/|dataarchivio=2019-06-06|urlmorto=no}}</ref><ref>{{Cita pubblicazione|autore=Daniel C. Howe and A. Braxton Soderman|anno=2009|titolo=The Aesthetics of Generative Literature: Lessons from a Digital Writing Workshop|rivista=Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures|volume=|numero=6|lingua=en|doi=10.20415/hyp/006.e04|url=http://hyperrhiz.io/hyperrhiz06/essays/the-aesthetics-of-generative-literature-lessons-from-a-digital-writing-workshop.html}}</ref> According to generative [[Artista|artist]] and [[Critica artistica|critic]] [[Philip Galanter]], generative art is as old as art itself,<ref>{{Cita web|url=http://www.artificial.dk/articles/galanter.htm|titolo='Generative art is as old as art'. An interview with Philip Galanter|lingua=en|urlarchivio=https://web.archive.org/save/http://www.artificial.dk/articles/galanter.htm|urlmorto=no}}</ref> though generative art gained popularity in the late [[XX secolo|twentieth century]], as a result of, in part, the computational possibilities offered via computers, which gave generative art a new platform for popular recognition.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":7" /> [[Storia dell'arte|Art historian]] [[Grant D. Taylor]] notes that [[computer art]]’s introduction in [[1963]] sparked outrage, mostly from non-computer artists who feared that the longevitysanctity of the [[Poesia|written poem]], beingas “communication from a particular human being” and “one last refuge for human beings”beings," would be at risk in the computer age.<ref name=":0">{{Cita libro|autore=Grant D. Taylor|curatore=Francisco J. Ricardo|titolo=When the Machine Made Art: The Troubled History of Computer Art|collana=International Texts in Critical Media Aesthetics|anno=2014|editore=Bloomsbury|città=New York|lingua=en|pp=5-6|volume=8}}</ref>
[[Arte digitale|Computer art]] was often seen as “another example of the vulgarization of science, where besotted artists, dallying with the latest scientific and technological media, produced what was tantamount to science as [[kitsch]],” paralleling the fascination of computer art with [[Modernismo|modernist]] responses to the development of [[Scienza fondamentale|pure sciences]] in the [[Novecento (disambigua)|early twentieth century.]]<ref name=":0" /> Prior to the mainstream acceptance of computer poetry as art in 1990s, people had hoped that machines would fail, having coveted art as a “refuge from the onslaughts of our whole machine civilization.”<ref name=":0" /> The stigma attached to computer art was voiced by artists such as [[Paul Brown]], who lambasted the use of computers in art as the “kiss of death”<ref name=":0" /> to describe computer artists who were rejected from galleries once it was revealed to curators and directors that computers played a role in their work’s creation.
=== Jean-Pierre Balpe ===
[[File:Jean-Pierre Balpe.jpg|miniatura|[[Jean-Pierre Balpe]] in 2000.]]
One of the first, most prominent uses of generative literature as a term can be traced back to [[Francia|French]] generative writer and theorist [[Jean-Pierre Balpe]], who in the mid-1970s, was inspired by [[Surrealismo|surrealism]], which fueled his exploration ofexplored automatic text generation’s artistic potential in the mid-1970s. Balpe defines generative literature as “the production of texts that continually change since they are based on a specific dictionary, on a set of rules and the use of algorithms.”<ref>{{Cita libro|curatore=Peter Gendola and Jörgen Schäfer|titolo=The Aesthetics of Net Literature: Writing, Reading
and Playing in the Programmable Media|anno=2007|editore=Transcript Verlag|città=Bielefeld|lingua=en|p=13}}</ref><ref>{{Cita libro|curatore=Peter Gendolla and Jörgen Schäfer|titolo=The Aesthetics of Net Literature: Writing, Reading
and Playing in the Programmable Media|anno=2007|città=Bielefeld|lingua=en|p=25}}</ref> Balpe believes that all literature, to an extent, is generative<ref>{{Cita testo|lingua=fr|autore=Jean-Pierre Balpe|titolo=Fiction et écriture générative|editore=|città=|data=|url=http://chatonsky.net/files/pdf/jean-pierre-balpe/jpb_fiction.pdf}}</ref> and that generative texts dismantle normative reading habits of temporally situating texts in relation to texts encountered earlier because “[t]he [[Narrativa|narrative]] is not totally built in advance but put together from a lot of virtualities which are — or are not — actualizing themselves in the course of reading.”<ref name=":5">{{Cita web|url=http://www.dichtung-digital.de/2005/1/Balpe/|titolo=Jean-Pierre Balpe: Principles and Processes of Generative Literature|autore=Jean-Pierre Balpe|lingua=en|urlarchivio=https://web.archive.org/web/20190524104407/http://www.dichtung-digital.de/2005/1/Balpe/|anno=2005}}</ref> Readers of generative literature neither see the same texts presented to them a second time nor read the same the text as another reader.<ref name=":5" />
Balpe worked on several computer-generated [[Novella|novels]] online spent the early [[Anni 2000|2000s]], including ''[[Trajectoires]]''<ref>{{Cita web|url=http://nt2.uqam.ca/fr/repertoire/trajectoires|titolo=Trajectoires|sito=ALN {{!}} NT2 Le Laboratoire de recherche sur les oeuvres hypermédiatiques|lingua=fr|urlarchivio=https://web.archive.org/save/http://nt2.uqam.ca/fr/repertoire/trajectoires|dataarchivio=2019-06-06|urlmorto=no}}</ref> (2001) and ''[[Fictions d'Issy|Fictions]]''<ref>{{Cita web|url=https://fiction.maisonpop.fr/|titolo=FICTIONS (fictions) Roman interactif et génératif|autore=Jean-Pierre Balpe|curatore=Maison Pop|lingua=fr|urlarchivio=https://web.archive.org/web/20190606092718/https://fiction.maisonpop.fr/|dataarchivio=2019-06-06|urlmorto=no}}</ref> (2004) and exhibited the poetry generator ''[[Babel Poésie]]'' (2004), which generates [[Poesia|poems]] from a [[Base di dati|database]] of [[Lingua francese|French]], [[Lingua italiana|Italian]], and [[Lingua spagnola|Spanish]] words, in the form of a [[Videopoesia|video poem]].<ref>{{Cita video|autore=Jean-Pierre Balpe|titolo=Babel Poèsie|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLUzgHS2HAA|accesso=2019-06-06|data=2014-08-27|lingua=fr}}</ref> Poems from ''Babel Poésie'' cannot be generated more than once, and while the content of its poems has been describedcriticized as “the poetry of trash“trash language, word garbage, chaos speak,” the poems’ forms have been praised as “a new poetry which works with boundless text flow and is conceived as an associative and endless process.”<ref>{{Cita web|url=http://www.p0es1s.net/en/projects/jean_pierre_balpe.html|titolo=P0es1s.digitale Poesie|lingua=en|accesso=2016-06-12|urlarchivio=https://web.archive.org/web/20190524104047/http://www.p0es1s.net/en/projects/jean_pierre_balpe.html|dataarchivio=2019-05-24}}</ref>
== Examples of generative literature ==
=== Raymond Kurzweil's "Cybernetic Poet" ===
[[File:Raymond Kurzweil, Stanford 2006 (square crop).jpg|miniatura|[[Raymond Kurzweil]] speaking at [[Università di Stanford|Stanford University]] in 2006.]]
First introduced sometime in the mid-1980s, [[Raymond Kurzweil]]’s [[Cybernetic Poet]] is an online program that generates poetry by reading an extensive collection of poems written by human authors. OnAccording histo websiteKurzweil, entitled “[http://www.kurzweilcyberart.com/poetry/rkcp_overview.php CyberArt Technologies],” Kurzweil introduces the Cybernetic Poet’s functionalities in greater detail: "RKCP [the Cybernetic Poet] uses a recursive poetry-generation algorithm to achieve the language style, rhythm patterns, and poem structure of the original authors whose poems were analyzed. There are also algorithms to maintain thematic consistency through the poem. The poems are in a similar style to the author(s) originally analyzed but are completely original new poetry. The system even has rules to discourage itself from plagiarizing."<ref>{{Cita libro|autore=Ray Kurzweil|titolo=The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence|anno=1999|editore=Penguin|città=New York|lingua=en|p=163}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cita web|url=http://www.kurzweilcyberart.com/poetry/rkcp_overview.php|titolo=Kurzweil CyberArt Technologies Home Page|autore=Raymond Kurzweil|lingua=en|urlarchivio=http://web.archive.org/save/http://www.kurzweilcyberart.com/poetry/rkcp_overview.php|dataarchivio=2019-05-24|urlmorto=no}}</ref>
Kurzweil has programmed the Cybernetic Poet to function like a human author, as its abilities to “maintain thematic consistency through the poem” and “discourage itself from plagiarizing” all suggest the development of an authorialAlso personality. Functioningfunctioning as a “poet’s assistant authoring tool,” the Cybernetic Poet aids human authors, Kurzweil claims, by “assist[ing] and stimulat[ing] a (human) poet in finding the right verbal images and phrases,” which, Kurzweil notes, “are often intriguing and surprising.”<ref name=":1" />
=== William Chamberlain and Thomas Etter's "Racter" ===
{{Citazione|Slide and tumble and fall among<br/>
The dead. Here and there<br/>
Will be found a utensil.|[[Racter]], "[[The Policeman's Beard is Half Constructed]]"|lingua=}}
In spite of its popularity, the Cybernetic Poet was not the only poetry generator from the mid-[[Anni 1980|1980s]]. [[William Chamberlain]] and [[Thomas Etter]]’s [[Racter]], whose namesake derives from ''raconteur'', is a [[software]] written in the [[Linguaggio di programmazione|programming language]] [[BASIC]] that generates prose on an [[IMS]] (Information Management System) computer without prompts from a human operator. A collection of Racter’s early [[fiction]] was published in a book entitled, ''[[The Policeman’s Beard is Half Constructed]]'' (1984), and aside from spelling mistakes corrected by Chamberlain himself, the text is completely computer-generated.<ref name=":4">{{Cita libro|autore=William Chamberlain|titolo=The policeman's beard is half constructed : computer prose and poetry by Racter ; [the first book ever written by a computer ; a bizarre and fantastic journey into the mind of a machine]|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/311319022|accesso=2019-06-02|data=1984|editore=Warner Books|lingua=en|OCLC=311319022|ISBN=0446380512}}</ref> Racter generates text from a [[Base di dati|database]] containing 2,400 words, matching [[Sostantivo|nouns]] with contextually appropriate [[Aggettivo|adjectives]], and it ensures continuity by tracking used phrases,.<ref name=":2">{{Cita libro|autore=Roberto Simanowski|titolo=Digital Art and Meaning: Reading Kinetic Poetry, Text Machines, Mapping Art, and Interactive Installations|anno=2011|editore=University of Minnesota Press|città=Minneapolis|lingua=en|pp=96-97|volume=35}}</ref> allowingIn the bookpreface, toChamberlain have some form of cohesionwrites that weRacter’s mightgoal callis ato [[Narrativa“replicate dihuman genere|narrative]]thinking” (even— thoughor, therein areother human-drawnwords, sketchesrepresent thata serveutopian asactualization visualof aidsthe vision that potentiallycertain contributepeople tohad thisfor cohesion).computers Racter’sduring choicethe of words is completely randommid-1980s, producing senseless textprecisely that literarycomputers criticwere [[Jack“designed Barleyto McGraw]]accomplish callsin “emptyseconds text”(or resemblingmicroseconds) “[[Dadaismo|Dadaist]]what nonsense”humans thatwould cannotrequire beyears [[Closeor reading|closecenturies read]]. Anyof attemptconcerted atcalculation closeeffort readingto Racter’sachieve,” “disturbingly superficial” [[Prosa|prose]]and, accordingin tosome McGrawcases, wouldwere beabsolutely aneeded, “conceptualas justificationcertain (seeminglytasks outcould ofnot thinbe air)accomplished forwithout vaguelythe relateduse stringsor assistance of wordsa computer.”<ref name=":24" />
Racter’s choice of words is completely random, producing senseless text that literary critic [[Jack Barley McGraw]] calls “empty text” resembling “[[Dadaismo|Dadaist]] nonsense” that cannot be [[Close reading|close read]]. Any attempt at close reading Racter’s “disturbingly superficial” [[Prosa|prose]], according to McGraw, would be a “conceptual justification (seemingly out of thin air) for vaguely related strings of words.”<ref name=":2" />
In the preface, Chamberlain writes that Racter’s goal is to “replicate human thinking” — or, in other words, represent a utopian actualization of the vision that certain people had for computers during the mid-1980s, precisely that computers were “designed to accomplish in seconds (or microseconds) what humans would require years or centuries of concerted calculation effort to achieve,” and, in some cases, were absolutely needed, as certain tasks could not be accomplished without the use or assistance of a computer.<ref name=":4">{{Cita libro|autore=William Chamberlain|titolo=The policeman's beard is half constructed : computer prose and poetry by Racter ; [the first book ever written by a computer ; a bizarre and fantastic journey into the mind of a machine]|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/311319022|accesso=2019-06-02|data=1984|editore=Warner Books|lingua=en|OCLC=311319022|ISBN=0446380512}}</ref>
=== Nick Montfort's ''#!''===
{{Citazione|form intends intense verse crease to tense form tense vent verse tone verse form crease form vent tends to crease to tends form form vent form crease tone verse tense|[[Nick Montfort]], "[[#!]]"|lingua=|lingua2=}}More contemporary examples of generative literature include [[Nick Montfort]]’s book entitled ''#!'' (2014) but pronounced ‘[[Shabang|sha-bang]]’ (which means “the set of all circumstances.”)<ref>{{Cita video|autore=Nick Montfort|titolo=Nick Montfort: "#!" {{!}} Talks At Google|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L19iQjE71Ws|accesso=2016-06-03|data=2014-12-11|editore=Talks at Google|lingua=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cita web|url=http://counterpathpress.org/nick-montfort|titolo=#!Nick Montfort – Counterpath|lingua=en-US|accesso=2019-06-03}}</ref><ref>{{Cita libro|autore=Nick Montfort|titolo=#!|anno=2014|editore=Counterpath Press|lingua=en|ISBN=978-1-933996-46-2}}</ref> Published thirty years after Racter and Kurzweil’s Cybernetic Poet, ''#!'' contains generated poems and their [[Algoritmo|algorithms]]. The book is divided into sections that introduce the algorithm, followed by print out of its output on the following pages. Some of the outputs end with ellipses to signify that they could not be printed due to their infinite length. ''#!''<nowiki/>'s title is also a valid [[Python]] command: the placement of a [[hashtag]] before any given text commands the computer not to read any text following the hashtag.
More recent examples of generative literature include [[Nick Montfort]]’s book entitled ''#!'' (2014) but pronounced ‘[[Shabang|sha-bang]]’ (which means “the set of all circumstances.”)<ref>{{Cita video|autore=Nick Montfort|titolo=Nick Montfort: "#!" {{!}} Talks At Google|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L19iQjE71Ws|accesso=2016-06-03|data=2014-12-11|editore=Talks at Google|lingua=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cita web|url=http://counterpathpress.org/nick-montfort|titolo=#!Nick Montfort – Counterpath|lingua=en-US|accesso=2019-06-03}}</ref><ref>{{Cita libro|autore=Nick Montfort|titolo=#!|anno=2014|editore=Counterpath Press|lingua=en|ISBN=978-1-933996-46-2}}</ref> Published thirty years after Racter and Kurzweil’s Cybernetic Poet, ''#!'' contains generated poems and their [[Algoritmo|algorithms]]. The book is divided into sections: each section begins with the algorithm, followed by its output on the subsequent pages. Some of the outputs end with ellipses to signify that they could not be printed due to their infinite length. ''#!''<nowiki/>'s title is also a valid [[Python]] command: the placement of a [[hashtag]] before any given text commands the computer not to read any text following the hashtag. In a review of ''#!'', [[Critica letteraria|literary critic]] [[John Cayley]] writes that the programs are meant to read by the program producing the output, but the inclusion of both program and output in ''#!'' makes the code “a (constitutive) facet of the poem. It is (also) the text.”<ref>{{Cita web|url=https://electronicbookreview.com/essay/poetry-and-stuff-a-review-of/|titolo=Poetry and Stuff: A Review of #!|autore=John Cayley|lingua=en-US|accesso=2019-06-02|urlarchivio=https://web.archive.org/web/20190602210941/https://electronicbookreview.com/essay/poetry-and-stuff-a-review-of/|dataarchivio=2019-06-02}}</ref> The effect of sharing the source code, according to Galanter, not only further creates confusion as to whether the source code is the text but also allows other artists to create variations of the output, which “breaks with the paradigm of the heroic single artist creating a ‘fixed’ masterpiece.”<ref name=":3">{{Cita libro|autore=Philip Galanter|curatore=Christiane Paul|titolo=A Companion to Digital Art|edizione=1|anno=2016|editore=John Wiley & Sons, Inc.|lingua=en|pp=169-171|capitolo=Generative Art Theory}}</ref>
== Contention ==
The literary status of algorithmic outputs has been an ongoing contention even amongst [[new media]] artists and critics;: [[Tecnologia dell'informazione|digital technology]] theorist [[Yuk Hui]] called algorithmic outputs “algorithmic catastrophes” rather than anything worth studying at all, defining outputs, — or “the product of automated algorithms,”algorithms” — as “the failure of reason,” not even “material failure.”<ref>{{Cita pubblicazione|autore=Yuk Hui|anno=2015|titolo=Algorithmic Catastrophe—The Revenge of Contingency|rivista=Parrhesia|volume=23|numero=|p=123|lingua=en|url=http://whatishappeningtoourbrain.rietveldacademie.nl/pages/brain/parrhesia.pdf}}</ref> Portuguese [[Letteratura sperimentale|experimental poet]] [[Rui Torres]], whose corpus of creative works includesinclude presenting poetry in [[hypermedia]] contexts, asserted, while fielding questions after a talk on Portuguese [[Letteratura elettronica|electronic literature]] delivered at the [[Università della California, Berkeley|University of California, Berkeley]] in April 2016,<ref>{{Cita video|autore=Rui Torres|titolo=Rui Torres – Unlocking the Secret Garden: Electronic Literature from Portugal|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKSo0iqdvPk|accesso=2019-05-24|data=2016-05-04|editore=Institute of European Studies, UC Berkeley|lingua=en}}</ref> that algorithmic outputs canhave never transpierce theno literary realm, thus barring algorithmic outputs as literature and siding with Hui’s idea that algorithmic behaviors suggest a “failure of reasonvalue.”
According to [[Philip Galanter|Galanter]], the oft-discussed question “[[Arte|What is art?]]” in [[Storia dell'arte|art history]] does not go unnoticed when conceptualizing a generative art theory. Generative art, Galanter notes, however, additionally faces the question frequently encountered within [[Artificial Intelligence|artificial intelligence]]: “Can it be claimed that a computer can and will express itself? Alternatively, when the computer determines forms not anticipated by the artist, does its creation still qualify as the artist’s expression?”<ref name=":3">{{Cita libro|autore=Philip Galanter|curatore=Christiane Paul|titolo=A Companion to Digital Art|edizione=1|anno=2016|editore=John Wiley & Sons, Inc.|lingua=en|pp=169-171|capitolo=Generative Art Theory}}</ref>
== Bibliography ==
* Aarseth, Espen J. ''Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature''. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
* Aquilina, Mario. “Text Generation, or Calling Literature into Question.” ''electronic book review'', August 6, 2017. http://electronicbookreview.com/essay/text-generation-or-calling-literature-into-question/.
* Cayley, John. “Beyond the Codexspace: Potentialities of Literary Cybertext.” ''Visible Language'' 30:2, 1996. 164-183.
* Funkhouser, Chris T. ''Prehistoric Digital Poetry: An Archaeology of Forms, 1959–''1995. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007.
* Funkhouser, Chris T. ''New Directions in Digital Poetry''. Edited by Francisco J. Ricardo. Vol. 1. International Texts in Critical Media Aesthetics. New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2012.
* Gendolla, Peter, and Jörgen Schäfer, eds. ''The Aesthetics of Net Literature: Writing, Reading and Playing in the Programmable Media''. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2007.
* Hayles, Katherine. ''Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary''. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008.
* Hayles, Katherine. “The Time of Digital Poetry: From Object to Event.” Edited by Adelaide Morris and Thomas Swiss. In ''New Media Poetics: Contexts, Technotexts, and Theories''. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006.
* McCormack, Jon, and Alan Dorin. “Art, Emergence, and the Computational Sublime.” Second Iteration, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Generative Systems in the Electronic Arts, Victoria, Australia, 5-7 December 2001.
* McCormack, Jon and Mark d’Inverno. “Computers and Creativity: The Road Ahead.” ''Computers and Creativity'', edited by Jon McCormack and Mark d’Inverno, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2012, pp. 421-424.
* McCormack, Jon, Oliver Brown, Alan Dorin, Jonathan McCabe, Gordon Monro, and Mitchel Whitelaw. “Ten Questions Concerning Generative Computer Art.” ''Leonardo'' 47, no. 2 (March 20, 2014): 135-141.
* Nake, Frieder. “Construction and Intuition: Creativity in Early Computer Art.” ''Computers and Creativity'', edited by Jon McCormack and Mark d’Inverno, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2012, pp. 61-94.
* Simanowski, Roberto. “What Is and Toward What End Do We Read Digital Literature?” Edited by Francisco J. Riccardo. In ''Literary Art in Digital Performance: Case Studies in New Media Art and Criticism'', 10-16. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2009.
* Simanowski, Roberto. ''Digital Art and Meaning: Reading Kinetic Poetry, Text Machines, Mapping Art, and Interactive Installations''. Vol. 35. Electronic Mediations. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.
== See also ==
*[[Letteratura elettronica|Electronic literature]]
* [[Arte generativa|Generative art]] ▼*[[Poesia elettronica|Digital poetry]]
▲* [[Arte generativa|Generative art]]
*[[Hypermedia]]
== External Links ==
* Jean-Pierre Balpe, [https://fiction.maisonpop.fr/ Fictions]
* Raymond Kurzweil, [http://www.kurzweilcyberart.com/poetry/rkcp_overview.php The Cybernetic Poet] ▼*Jean-Pierre Balpe, [http://nt2.uqam.ca/fr/repertoire/trajectoires Trajectoires]
▲* Raymond Kurzweil, [http://www.kurzweilcyberart.com/poetry/rkcp_overview.php The Cybernetic Poet]
*Nick Montfort, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L19iQjE71Ws #!]
{{Portale|arte|letteratura|informatica}}
*Wikipedia entry on [[:en:Constrained_writing|Constraint writing]]<br />
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