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Experimental literature SM2220 Generative Art & Literature Linda C.H. LAI March 2009

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Page 1: SM2220 Generative Art & Literaturesweb.cityu.edu.hk/sm2220/Experimental-literature[1].pdfExperimental literature SM2220 Generative Art & Literature Linda C.H. LAI. March 2009

Experimental literature

SM2220 Generative Art & Literature

Linda C.H. LAIMarch 2009

Page 2: SM2220 Generative Art & Literaturesweb.cityu.edu.hk/sm2220/Experimental-literature[1].pdfExperimental literature SM2220 Generative Art & Literature Linda C.H. LAI. March 2009

What is Experimental Literature?

Core ideas:

Innovations > technique/styleEarly 20th-century modernist: Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein

1950s – Beat writers: e.g. William S. Burrough’s Naked Lunch1970s – Italo Calvino,Julio Cortázar

Ergodic literatureDigital Poetry

Generative LiteratureThe OuLiPo

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Views on poetry: the moment of creation, the act of reading

‘The taste of apple…lies in the contact of the fruit with the palate, not in the fruit itself; in a similar way, poetry lies in the meeting of poem and reader, not in the lines of symbols printed on the pages of a

book. What is essential is the aesthetic act…’

Jorge Luis Borges, Foreword to Obra Poetica, quoted in Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, Polemics, London: Academy, 1996, p. 6

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Views on poetry: Poetry as chance generating a system

Dadaists and Surrealists were probably the first to use random numbers and chance systems to build complex automatic generative poetry.

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Views on poetry: the “moment”

The moment of unfolding…

“All poetry might be seen to be generative in that it is always in the process of becoming. Even for the Surrealist Paul Valéry, a poem ‘entails a continuous linkage between the voice that is, the voice that impends, and the voice that is to come’. It is generative in the sense that it unfolds in real-time.”

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Haiku / Renku

See separate pdf…

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Haiku / RenkuMoonlight ---A sand duneShifts(Virginia Brady Young)

The hillsRelease the summer clouds

One by one by one(John Wills)

Blue skyCloud after cloud from behind

The snowy mountain(Bruce Ross)

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Haiku / Renku

aki no yo ya autumn night…tabi no otoko no a traveling man’s harishigoto needlework

Page 9: SM2220 Generative Art & Literaturesweb.cityu.edu.hk/sm2220/Experimental-literature[1].pdfExperimental literature SM2220 Generative Art & Literature Linda C.H. LAI. March 2009

Views on poetry: Poetry as the art of sound

The ‘art of speech’ is ‘total art.’

Dada’s sound poemsKurt Schwitters

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Views on poetry: …. …. ….

Poetry is the most difficult to define:

‘Poetry throws sense-bound classificatory distinctions into question as it is both read and heard; or written and spoken/performed.’

Hegel’s dialectical thinking: …we do not hear speech by simply listening to it…we need to represent speech to ourselves in written form in order to grasp what it essentially is

Written and spoken forms work together to form a language that we appreciate as poetry.

Audible signs (time of the ear) + visible signs (space of the eye)

(Geoff Cox, Alex McLean and Adrian Ward, “the Aesthetics of Generative Code” http://www.generative .net )

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Views on poetry: …. …. ….

Poetry at the point of its execution?

makingreading & hearing

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“CONCRETE POEM”

Or shape poetryis poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on

Apollinaire’s Calligrammes, an example.(See separate pdf notes)

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The Mouse’s Tale by Lewis Carroll… (a concrete poem that appears in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

http://bootless.net/mouse.html

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Linda’s calligrams

From Cryptoglyph: dialogues in many tongues in the crevices on on open city (2004)

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Generative Literature:

“Process poem” by A. Leandro from Ponto-Ovum 10

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Oulipo

algorithmic reconstructions manual deformationsrecursive algorithms

Iteration / recursion(Please refer to slide #56 in pdf “Generative Art & Literature: overview – Week 1+2)

Page 22: SM2220 Generative Art & Literaturesweb.cityu.edu.hk/sm2220/Experimental-literature[1].pdfExperimental literature SM2220 Generative Art & Literature Linda C.H. LAI. March 2009

The Dinosaur – by Augusto Monterroso (Guatemala)

“When I woke up, the dinosaur was still

there .”

Page 23: SM2220 Generative Art & Literaturesweb.cityu.edu.hk/sm2220/Experimental-literature[1].pdfExperimental literature SM2220 Generative Art & Literature Linda C.H. LAI. March 2009

The variety and diversity of experimental literature

Core ideas: …to play with language

Words (morphology, semantics), sentences (syntax),

constructions (grammar)…to play with the norms of creative writing

What to writeHow to write

Where to write

…what/how/where to present writing…the material conditions of the presentation of writing:

Printing methodPrinting materialPrinted surface

Typographylayout

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BIG BUSINESS CARDZHU FADONG, 1993(from: Transience: Chinese experimental art at the end of the twentieth century)

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LOOKING FOR A MISSING PERSONZHU FADONG, 1993Transience: Chinese experimental art at the end of the twentieth century

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The variety and diversity of experimental literature

AUTOMATISM

Chance operationThe actual moments of writingThe act itselfWriting as a performance

Automatic writing

RulesTo tap our unconscious mind as a new form of creative

resources

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The variety and diversity of experimental literature

MEDIUM SPECIFICITY

…to turn to the lower-level units of language…to explore the basic components of language…to reveal how language works rather than to communicate

Poetry (poems)“Poetry is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic qualities, in addition to, or instead of, its ostensible meaning.”“Poetry, unlike other literary forms, focuses most sharply on language itself. The music of words, how they sound, how their sounds flow and mix and form musical patterns are vital to poetry.”

ACCENTS – COUPLETS – INTONATION – METER – RHYTHM – RHYME – SYLLABLES – STANZAS

Physical attributes of words: SOUND, SIZE, SHAPE, and RHYTHM

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The variety and diversity of experimental literature

INTERMEDIA

…Questioning what the medium is. …Breaking out of the boundaries of existing media by using new

resources (expanded art)…Challenging the normal frames of reference of the audience… no clear-cut separation between what belongs to one medium

and what belongs to another (the in-between) (neither…nor…)

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The variety and diversity of experimental literature

CONCEPTUAL ART

Process > workIdea > work

Writing needs not be about meanings of the text. Writing is only a way of presenting an idea: the idea is the

most important thing.

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The variety and diversity of experimental literature

REFLEXIVITY

Doing a certain kind of creative writing, at the same time reflecting/commenting on what is written and the norms that govern the writing.

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The variety and diversity of experimental literature

PERFORMATIVE FUNCTIONS

The act of writing/reading is being opened up and revised every time we write and read.

…a refusal to settle on a final, conclusive version of a work

An open work

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Generative Literature

See pdf on “Sam’s Little Experiments”

Jason Nelson’s Poem Cubehttp://www.secrettechnology.com/poem_cube/poem_cube.html

Linda Lai & Keith Lam: Crypt-machine

Linda Lai & Lawrence Choi: Who is Singing? - Donald, can you hear me?http://www.invisibilis.com/wm/

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A generative book? Intermedia + medium-specificity + algorithmic thinking + rule-based structuring

A non-linear book?A book that can be read in any order?

A book that does need to be read according to page numbers?A book that has multiple ordering of pages?

A book that violates pagination?

A book that requires a different mode of ‘reading’?Flip book? (a time-based book)

A book for texture?A book that is an installation?

An altered book – a book based on existing books?

A book without images?WHAT MAKES A BOOK GENERATIVE?

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A generative book? Intermedia + medium-specificity + algorithmic thinking + rule-based structuring

Page 35: SM2220 Generative Art & Literaturesweb.cityu.edu.hk/sm2220/Experimental-literature[1].pdfExperimental literature SM2220 Generative Art & Literature Linda C.H. LAI. March 2009

Experimental books

DMU Leicesterhttp://homepage.mac.com/emma_powell/bookexhibition/PhotoAlbum70.html

Rejectamentahttp://rejectamenta.com/display/phd/experimental-books

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Generative literature is a kind of experimental literature. Generative literature is a very specific form of digital literature.

Jean-Pierre Balpe:

“Generative literature, defined as the production of continuously changing literary texts by means of a specific dictionary, some set of rules and the use of algorithms, is a very specific form of digital literature.”

Generative art is a literature “where the texts are produced through a computer by means of a set of formal rules…”

It is a literature of which the author does not write the final texts, but…only works at the level of the high rank components such as conceptual models, knowledge rules, dictionary entries and rhetoric definitions.

[The author is a designer.][The author is like a meta-author, defining what literature means, and how his

literary conception can be formally described.]

“Principles and processes of generative literature: questions to literature”http://www.brown.edu/Research/dichtung-digital/2005/1/Balpe/index.htmMore useful reference:http://www.hyperrhiz.net/hyperrhiz06/19-essays/78-the-aesthetics-of-generative-literature

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Final project

*Word game*Literature game (e.g. Poem Cube, Life in

the Garden, Cryptmachine – echoes)*Digitization of an Oulipo work*Digitization of a selected piece of literature*A generative book