Peter
Gendolla writes that virtual installations, such as
Text
Rain, leave us with a “troubling” question
which theoretically applies to all interactive, generated
works: “are we reading a poem…or is the poem
reading us?” I am not as troubled by this question as I
willingly perceive we are reading digital poems, and the
poems are reading us. Contemporary, electronic poems may be
challenging/intriguing/annoying to read, and also reflect
the reader’s identity as a technological
being—perhaps in an uncomfortable way. Poems on
websites embedded with cookies do literally read the
reader—one’s tracks through the tracks of digital
poems can be tracked.
Producing digital writing
begins with an idea or concept, which is developed by a
programmer using computer technology, who shapes, populates,
and makes it work. The bulk of the effort involved is on the
human side of the equation; the computer carries out orders
made by the author. When a program/poem involves
randomization, it would seem to give agency to the computer,
but it is the author who has called for this and (typically
but not always) prepares the database. Much of the work is
done by the human programmer; much less is done by the
machine, which basically does as told. The programmer/poet
creatively conceives the work, establishes the database
(which is absolutely crucial), engineers the chosen
mechanics of the poem, and pushes it to delivery. Obviously,
there are limits to what can be done, and various gauges by
which to measure success—more than the critic analyzing
a written poem typically contends with.
When we read the digital
poem as critics, we are doing what we are trained to
do—offer insight into the verbal dynamics of text,
applying our own bias, perspective, and knowledge to read
the language presented by an author—and then more.
While it is both significant and interesting that an
artist/programmer has created the work using computer
technology, and certainly this is an important aspect of the
text to consider, this is really just another potential
layer of the text to address. Literary critics should be
stern with analysis of the digital poem, while concurrently
taking technological dimensions into account when there is
something to be said about them (which is often). If the
output does not stimulate to any of the senses, we should
say so, and explain why—but we should also be sure we
understand the intention of the poem, and what it is
technologically doing, to begin with. This is especially
important for unconventional works. For example, most
readers may not aesthetically appreciate the output created
by the Hugh Kenner-Joseph O’Rourke program
Travesty, but if they know what the program is doing,
why and how it makes texts the way it does, they could then
develop some sort of appreciation for the text. It is the
job of the critic to be sure as many dimensions of the work
as possible are seen. Further, the critic, to be
responsible, cannot rely on one generated example but rather
several, in order to give a more fully rounded account of
what the generator program is or isn’t capable of
doing. This is impossible to accomplish using a single
example of any generated text. Initial impressions are
important but need to be fortified by studying and
interacting with the work.
There is always intent, but
does one meaning in every moment in the process of the
production of digital literature? Decidedly not; the critic
looks beyond meaning for other possibilities. This
predicament is nothing new to literature. Pound himself
reflected, embarrassedly, about spewing nonsense in The
Cantos. Meaning, through language and lyricism, is not
presented in the individual lines of postmodern works (see
books by Language Poets, for example). But the sum of the
lines does communicate something interpretable, and sends a
message to the readers. Perhaps there are people out there
creating meaningless works of digital literature, but I
somehow doubt it because it is not worth the effort
involved!
Readers, explorers of the
text, are responsible for a lot in this equation, including
the production of meaning. Generated works that involve
nonsense may not be welcomed—the reader may or may not
be stimulated and will decide whether or not engaging with
them is worth the effort. Knowing that a machine is creating
output may be a deterrent, finally. Works can be too
aesthetically challenging (or challenged), and the
“noise” within the encounter of the text may
impede access to the reader’s imagination! Fortunately
such works will probably make themselves known to the reader
almost immediately.
If a program’s database
itself is not randomly prepared—that is, if the author
has a purpose, theme, etc.—then presumably
intentionality is infused. Serious works of digital
literature are highly thoughtful, highly engineered
communication; it may be wildly unconventional
communication, and can be put into context as such. I know
of no programs, generators or otherwise, that did not have,
at very least, some sort of theoretical idea to communicate.
The development of digital forms themselves expands the
parameters of what literature is. It also alters our
perception of what literature can be—although it is not
firmly established in the canon by any means. In the end,
digital works may end up being classified as technological
literature (or something else)—it is difficult to
establish exactly where it fits in given the current
academic configuration but develops nonetheless.
The computer is obviously
incapable of feeling emotions, but it is capable of
projecting or transmitting language, sound, sights infused
with pathos. Any emotional transmission is the result of
human interjection. The viewer of a certain kind of movie or
television program can have an emotional response to content
presented via these forms of media, and I do not see why we
should be surprised to be moved, disturbed, or even elated
by something that emits from a computer screen. Of course
this doesn’t frequently happen; it is so rare, in fact,
that this is why we are surprised when it does (not because
it is happening because of its computerization). The
audience can respond as it will, and perhaps as yet
shouldn’t have high expectations.
Computer generated poems
force us to confront human-machine hybrids and sometimes the
combination will be unpleasant, particularly if one expects
machine modulated work to compare to written works. But the
types of disruptions that occur in digital work are not an
absolute characteristic. Whatever the surface and depths the
artwork contains can be appreciated, charted, defined, and
evaluated by how it is presented. Being not a singular form,
interacting with digital literature—which is written
for many purposes—is a process of many negotiations.
Some works are highly complex and difficult, some are more
fluid. Engagement is controlled by the viewer, who has been
led to, or gravitated, to the work.
Among the works I have been
drawn to are those prepared for a collection of generators
titled Syntext, produced by Pedro Barbosa and
Abílio Cavalheiro. Works presented in the anthology
are purposely composed so that syntax is preserved in
randomly generated works through combinatorics, permutation,
and slotted methods.
We can read it as we would
read literature written by a single author, or can alter our
reading standards and look for other aspects in the poetry.
While critics such as Aarseth challenge the practice of
reading and discussing new works by old standards, one can
see the value of applying both old and new critical lenses
to the work. New lenses focus on technical, expanded
aesthetic issues, and evaluation of processes into the
critical mix.
Programs in Syntext
incorporate a range of source materials (including texts by
other authors). Multiple sources (inputs) lead to more
diversified combinations, which lead to more complexities
(for both author and viewer), as well as more outcomes. The
imposition of dramatic and mysterious elements is enticing,
heightened by sophisticated, surprising, verbal
juxtapositions in both clearly stated lines and those that
resist bearing finite meaning. Successful works sometimes
feature an opening “hook” that draws the reader
into a speculative internal dialogue that is sustained by
characteristics of the programming in the lines that follow.
Viewers can be led into the poem in much the same way they
are on a page, through speculation and by establishing a
ponderous natural setting.
In Barobosa’s
“Porto,” the reader confronts impossible
circumstances (“the nostalgia of the stone”) among
the logical, made possible only through creative reflex,
sometimes difficult to interpret or envision. Being
precarious, at the edge of the cliff, imaginatively, has
always been the work of the poet. Is using the machine to be
so cheating?
The absurdity and humor in
Barbosa’s “Cityman Story” are refreshing:
completely alternative perspectives and meanings, divergent
from the original poem, emerge through the randomness of the
subsequent lines’ order and shape. The positions of the
poem’s phrases and the meaning they produce change in
each example, such as when the subject of the poem kisses a
steak instead of his wife. Barbosa’s programming design
generates a variety of narratives from words originally
composed for other purposes. Discursive capabilities of the
programs well suit the task of making fragments cohere while
enlivening the initial humdrum character of the poem (whose
existence is portrayed as typical and narrow). The poem is
lively and peripatetic—the program serves unites
content and form in an imaginative way. This
“cut-up” work adapts the language of the original
to produce a series of texts that portray surrealistic
(absurd) and humorous characteristics, in which “there
are progressive degrees of freedom”. Many distinctive
“stories” are told, all using the same language to
portray wild deviations from the mundane occurrences found
in the source text, driven by Barbosa’s determination
to subvert the status quo of his subject. The poems retain a
type of narrative while transforming the language into
something different, projecting a narrative by something or
someone who is seeing the world from an alternative point of
view.
Cumulative meaning or
understanding is established by the reader, who is
challenged to create the circumstance given the authorial
framework and loosely directed verbal scheme. In order to
believe it is a poem, a text’s content and form must
compel the reader. Many if not most generators are thus
unconvincing, but when the content of the output presents
itself realistically (from any perspective) it is worthy of
consideration despite redundancies that occur. One can adopt
a Cubist perspective—these permutations are not
redundancies but rather different dimensions that emerge
from a text.
Dramatic sensibility,
surprising imagery, and tormented narrative startle the
reader due in part because of their machine modulated
condition. The articulations of the programs, written by a
person but projected by a computer, may not be taken as
seriously as the madness in the lines of Edgar Allan Poe or
other poets who included such dramatic features, but they
are convincing evidence that emotionally driven content can
be projected by the apparatus. Various degrees of humor and
irony are also supported in these effectively randomized,
unique cyborgian texts. In this process, one poem becomes
the foundation of, as Jean-Pierre Balpe describes in his
essay "E-Poetry: Time and Language Changes" an
“infinite, not eternal” chain of subsequently
produced works.
Programs that deliver a
range of varied output will reward the viewer, whose effort
to produce and consume poems is non-trivial. Anyone looking
for a range of unique derivations of texts can enjoy these
programs, and could use the output as a starting point for
their own expressive articulations. A creative programmer
imposes outside (artificial) order and formal structure in
computer poems by designing a framework where only certain
components are randomly filled by grammatically appropriate
words. The author/programmer studies the form, determines an
effective linguistic framework, and prepares the database
accordingly in order to generate meaningful poetic
statements (both in themselves and when juxtaposed with
other examples) in which the happenstance merging of
elements has the ability to create unusual and paradoxical
concurrences.
Meaning can be generated on
multiple registers even when strict parameters are imposed
on a work if the vocabulary included in the database is
versatile. The author/programmer selects words that
effectively fuse with others and cohere with each aspect of
the verbal equation. Works from Syntext not only demonstrate
the flexibility of computer poems, but also clearly
establishes that the careful arrangement of elements and
negotiations between random factors become the forces that
determine the quality of this form of digital poetry. In
these examples, motivations beyond reifying basic Dada
impulse are present in most works. Generally speaking, the
“syn-” prefix affixed to “text” in the
title can be taken literally. Works (texts) produced by the
programs contained in this title are synthesized and
synthetic poems or prose poems that do not spring from a
natural, singular source. They do come in to existence
somewhere between chaos and order, and deconstruct human
language to find new meanings. Literary and cultural
routines are subverted by the computer, the programming of
which manages to preserve the poetry in a readable and
interpretable state.
Technically proficient use
of cleverly devised language and capable poetic grammar:
seeing these productions is an informative experience, which
not only shows that computers can capably co-create poetry
but that entire—potentially infinite—readable
anthologies of digital literature have been produced, even
if two readers would never see the same work. These readable
texts are stimulating in several ways and can quickly
transform its audience’s mindset, as poetry and
literature have done since its condition as an oral
form—here with the push of a button instead of turning
a page or sitting in the audience. Someone who is interested
in reading something that will perhaps disrupt his or her
path will especially appreciate these programs.
dichtung-digital