|
[[Utente:Lydia Tuan/Generative Literature#%20ftnref2|[2]]] Galanter (2016), 171.
== Computational sublime ==
The “computational sublime” addresses this fascination voiced by generative art critics and generative artists respectively, that code could be programmed to produce writing that may have discernable meaning and make sense. Termed by digital poets and critics Jon McCormack and Alan Dorin in 2009, the computational sublime borrows from the notion of sublime established in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: the fear of being unable to experience or quantify the totality of all that exists to be experienced in the world while also feeling overwhelmed (but potentially in a pleasurable way) while acknowledging this fact. Per the authors’ formulation, the computational sublime is:
the instilling of simultaneous feelings of pleasure and fear in the viewer of a process realized in a computing machine. A duality in that even though we cannot comprehend the process directly, we can experience it through the machine — hence we are forced to relinquish control. It is possible to realize processes of this kind in the computer due to the speed and scale of its internal mechanism, and because its operations occur at a rate and in a space vastly different to the realm of our direct perceptual experience.[[Utente:Lydia Tuan/Generative Literature#%20ftn1|[1]]]
The feeling of dual pleasure and fear that programs can produce text that, from a human perspective, could pass as human-authored is exacerbated by an awareness of a computing machine potentially becoming or, at least, approaching the status of a creative equal to humans. Furthermore, the loss of control allows humans to experience the work through the machine and through an understanding of the machine’s computational abilities rather than engaging with the output directly. The feeling of being overwhelmed by the recognition that machine operations “occur at a rate and in space vastly different to the realm of our direct perceptual experience” draws a concern echoed by generative and computer art critics, namely the possibility that computer programs, generating surprising and unexpected output, could either amount to or supersede the human capacity for literary production.
McCormack and Dorin’s computational sublime echoes generative artist Marius Watz’s notion of “genuine surprise,” defined as “a temporary loss of subjectivity, as a relinquishment of one’s subjective intention, either to another’s control or to objective forces beyond one’s control.”[[Utente:Lydia Tuan/Generative Literature#%20ftn2|[2]]] According to Watz, the experience of surprise is key to generative art, and one way of aesthetically judging generative art might depend on the work’s ability to induce surprise. It is, however, arguably anxiety-inducing when program-generated outputs and human-authored literature cannot be confidently differentiated, as such was experienced in new media artists Daniel C. Howe and Braxton Soderman’s undergraduate digital writing workshops at Brown University from 2007 to 2008. Having discussed Watz’s genuine surprise with their students, who created and analyzed generative literature, Howe and Soderman reported that program-generated texts often prompted students’ anxieties about the texts’ meaning and authorship, supported by their fear that the computer might even have an “individuality.” As the article will later discuss, the problem of authorship is always central to debates regarding generative literature, providing interesting perspectives on questions of authorship that have been central to criticisms of existing literary forms.
[[Utente:Lydia Tuan/Generative Literature#%20ftnref1|[1]]] McCormack and Dorin, 78.
[[Utente:Lydia Tuan/Generative Literature#%20ftnref2|[2]]] Howe and Soderman, “The Aesthetics of Generative Literature: Lessons from a Digital Writing Workshop.”
== References ==
<references />
|
