Utente:Lydia Tuan/Generative Literature: differenze tra le versioni
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Riga 14:
The idea that code can be read, analyzed, and written as literature is not unprecedented. Codework poetry, known as the construction and stylization of verse using a mixture of programming languages with natural languages to produce literature, is a literary treatment of data. Using programming languages like natural languages by giving them syntactical and semantic meanings produces a concrete poem-esque effect when juxtaposed together in the same context. Published anonymously in the networked discussion system [[Usenet]], “Black Perl” (1990) serves as an example of a codework poem. Written in the programming language [[Perl]] (short for “Practical Extraction and Report Language”) as an example of Perl Poetry, “Black Perl” was intentionally written in valid Perl commands so that it could be understood by computer and human reading. The step-by-step commands listed in each line of the program transform into a narrated event when read line-by-line as a poem. The code’s form, such as the inclusion the asterisks and parentheses, influences the readability of the code as a poem, as various punctuation marks serve different semantic purposes when read in Perl than in [[Lingua inglese|English]], for example. However, “Black Perl” was intentionally written as a poem, meaning that this particular codework poem has more in common with practices of constraint writing than generative literature. In fact, “Black Perl” is not generative for the reason that it is not program-generated output but, is, instead, the program itself. The usefulness of this poem, however, is to demonstrate the duality of human and computer readability in “Black Perl” and how programming languages are not completely devoid of literary value.
== Controversy ==
Despite the loose parameters for what qualifies as art today, the debatable literary status of algorithmic outputs has been an ongoing contention even amongst [[new media]] artists. 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,” 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 includes presenting poetry in hypermedia contexts, asserted, while fielding questions after a talk 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 can never transpierce the literary realm, thus barring algorithmic outputs as literature and siding with Hui’s idea that algorithmic behaviors suggest a “failure of reason.”
To address this skepticism maintained by Hui and Torres, as well as other generative art skeptics — that algorithmic output cannot qualify as art — inevitably attracts past debates on art’s definition that have been hashed and re-hashed out since the emergence of the avant-garde. According to generative artist [[Philip Galanter]], the oft-discussed question of “What is art?” within art theory does not go unnoticed when formulating generative art theory. If art is to be understood as a product of expression, then generative art, Galanter notes, faces another obstacle, namely, the frequently encountered question within artificial intelligence discourse: “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>{{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|p=169|capitolo=Generative Art Theory}}</ref>
Riga 20:
=== Raymond Kurzweil's "Cybernetic Poet" ===
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. On his website, entitled
"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.
The Poet’s ability to produce original poetry by reading, first, an extensive selection of poems by one or several authors mimics a writing process that could very well be practiced by human poets — especially if we recall that novel literary forms and styles often emerge from the influence and desire to depart from current and preceding literary movements. Kurzweil has seemingly 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 authorial personality. Functioning as a “poet’s assistant authoring tool,” the Cybernetic Poet aids human authors 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.”
=== William Chamberlain and Thomas Etter's "Racter" ===
In spite of its popularity, the Cybernetic Poet was not the only poetry generator from the mid-1980s. [[William Chamberlain]] and [[Thomas
Prefacing the book, 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.[[Utente:Lydia Tuan/Generative Literature#%20ftn1|[1]]] Chamberlain’s description of Racter parallels Kurzweil’s Cybernetic Poet in the sense that the goal of both poetry generators is to make creative choices that a human might make. This commonality between Racter and the Cybernetic Poet not only reveals the utopian appeal of computers that some people held during the late twentieth century, but also reveals the hope that people had for computers to be their friendly, helpful companions rather than representative extensions of themselves that may threaten the role of humans in the creation of humanity, as now discussed in many posthumanist discourses of the twenty-first century.[[Utente:Lydia Tuan/Generative Literature#%20ftn2|[2]]]
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