poemitron s versions spampoet, minute revolution and old texts for new readers

Transcription

1 The Poemitron artware description: (for minute revolution, old texts for new readers and spampoet) The Poemitron functions something like a dialogue-with-computer, creating entropic-like texts that begin with a selected passage and morph into something previously unimagined. Poemitron s custom designed software engine randomly selects a word from its given story or writing shown in the interface. This selected word is brought forward into the brain element of the interface, for parsing. The brain line of text displays the word it has randomly selected to work on, then shuffles quickly through a display of all potential replacement words. It stops, again randomly, on one word in the array of possibilities. This new word is then nestled back into the full text creating a new, altered piece of writing. Poemitron can work on a given phrase for any given length of time. Although the piece works slowly as a subtle wordby-word animation, over time, the text can take dramatic, ironic, poetic, political or absurd turns. The interface, a slow-twinkling field of transforming text becomes a constantly changing image of a story with constantly shifting meaning. Wonderful mistakes happen through this machine interpretation of human writing - accentuating questions around authorship, the nature of narrative, and the construction of meaning. In London, Ontario, at the LOLAfest 2008, Poemitron played minute revolution a 6 storey and a 10 storey projection using the Beatles Revolution as their starting point. minute revolution at LOLAfest 08, London Ontario. 2 sites. City Centre Building and The Grand Theatre. City Centre Projection of minute revolution

2 City Centre Projection of minute revolution.

3 Grand Theatre Projection of minute revolution.

4 For Pace University, Poemitron reviews the first Address to the United Nations given by President Bush, November 10, 2001 in a piece called old texts for new readers. This international speech has interesting promises, suggestions and ideas about how we should collectively function with grace and dignity in a fearful world together as a global community. The random and minute textual performances create ripples in the meaning, in a sense decaying and shifting the text before our eyes.

5 old texts for new readers Pace University indoor projection, November 2008 Spampoet, is another piece that takes as their starting point, what I think of as Trojan Horse poems - the little poems that allow spam to sneak through filters that often appear at the bottom of unwanted messages. I m assuming that the original spampoems are machine-written by a fancy algorithm. Spampoet takes their oddly poetic turns of phrase to another absurd place. I think of spampoet as two machines writing poetry to one another. The poemitron simply runs off a regular computer a core 2 duo processor with vga out. The display size can be altered depending on the native resolution of the projector or the monitor. To operate the piece, I need to install the custom software on the computer that runs the artpiece. Depending on the display space the piece can be projected or displayed on a wall mounted monitor. spampoet being projected at Pace University in New York City, November 2008.

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