![Page 1: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Generative Arts & Literature:an overview
Linda Lai
Spring 2008
![Page 2: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
(from last week’s games)
Processuality
Proceduralism
Spatial approach to cognition
system / labyrinth
New cognition
Retrieval
![Page 3: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
(from last week’s games)
Processuality / Proceduralism / Spatial approach to cognitionSelf-generated systemLabyrinthSelf-organization, self-generation combinatorial / permutation
series formationalgorithm
Rule-drivenness
Simplicity complexityMorphological process
GENERATIVE ART
![Page 4: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
GENERATIVE ART…
20th-century artists’ concern to provide “design solution” – how to create new methods of composition that is capable of the infinitethe role of automatismtowards the “machinic”
New creative impulse in 20th-century art –discovery / surprise > realization / significationchance operation > conception
Processuality / Proceduralism / Spatial approach to cognitionSelf-generated systemLabyrinthSelf-organization, self-generation combinatorial / permutation
Simplicity complexityMorphological process
![Page 5: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
I.
Generative Art & Literature as
Modern & Contemporary Art
![Page 6: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
Questions raised by Modernist art practices
(Modernism 現代主義 ) ↓ Mimetic functions of art↓ Representation/signification value↓ Expressive quality
↑ Exploration of concepts↑ Consideration of the tool and its uniqueness
↑ (Medium-specificity)↑ Event / performative emphasis
↑ ↑ Emphasis on structure↑ ↑ Design quality of work / art work as a design↑ ↑ ↑ Rule-driven creativity: process & discovery
![Page 7: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
Generative Art
Self multiplication
Self organization
Single unit complex system
Simplicity complexity
Rule applicationCombinatorial / permutation / algorithm / emergence
![Page 8: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
Generative Art: an initial case for review
Gego (German born female artist residing in Venezuela)
Lines …planes …objects …environment
Triangles… Squares… Spheres
Triangles into netsTriangles forming circular planesTriangles into cylinders and tubular structuresTriangles forming spheresSquares into sheetsSquares into netsSquare as frames…
![Page 9: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
Generative Art: an initial case for review
Gego (German born female artist residing in Venezuela)
Anti-sculpture…
“I still dislike the word ‘sculpture’. They are not sculptures.” (referring to her works)
Dictionary definitions, she pointed out, describe sculpture as any assembled objects.
She felt such a definition does not sufficiently cover her works – mainly jointed pieces and structures.
Her intention was not only form and volume, but transparent structure.
***She emphasizes she never made sketches of her work…
![Page 10: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
II.Generative Art/Generative Systems:
visual arts, literature & (computer-)automated art
![Page 11: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
What is Generative Art?
Generative Art performs the idea as process.
![Page 12: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
What is Generative Art?
Generative Art performs the idea as process.
Rules as constraint produce a somewhat automatic process.
Rules are used to ensure the next possible step forward.
GA begs the question of what’s possible & what is virtual
![Page 13: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
What is Generative Art?
Generative Art performs the idea as process.
Rules as constraint produce a somewhat automatic process.
Rules are used to ensure the next possible step forward.
The intricacies of a GA work often lie in the rational relation between each two steps + the leaps-and-bounds differences at the end of a sequence of operations.
![Page 14: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
Generative Art?
To generate = to produce, to bring into existence, to bring forward, to present to view or notice…
Generative = capable of producing
Generative procedural, serialist
![Page 15: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
Generative Systems?
…a system capable of functioning with generative forces…
…a system that imposes a structure on something that is very lively, viable and fluid…
![Page 16: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
Generators
…a unit (part) of the system that is capable of generating (producing) more units…
![Page 17: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
Generators
What does it mean to say that something is (serves the functions of) a generator?
e.g.: when is an apple just an apple?
when is an apple a generator?
![Page 18: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
Generators
A generator can be thought of as a unit capable of producing…
Anything can become a generator when…
*it is turned into a principle for more productive activities…
*it is studied for its ability to push forward the production of the next possible members…
![Page 19: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
“Apple” as a generator
On linguistic level?As Chinese characters
As a set of alphabets that form the word “apple” in English
As a signifier (the name) of a fruit
As a metaphor/symbolism
……
On graphic/visual level?As a round object
As a red object
As an object with a stalk
As……
![Page 20: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
“Apple” as a generator: divergent approach
Case study:
Archaeology of the Apple
http://aisforapple.net/main.htm
![Page 21: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
↑Exploration of concepts A line as a generator
Bridget RileyDominance Portfolio, Blue, Bridget Riley.1977
![Page 22: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/22.jpg)
A set of line as a generator
Jared Tarbell’s digitization of Bridget Riley’s works
http://levitated.net/daily/levRileyStack.html
![Page 23: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/23.jpg)
Generators
Generators can be…A key word
An objectA name
A graphic element (point, line, shape etc.)A fragment of a story
A narrativeA dramatic structure
…….
![Page 24: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/24.jpg)
Generators
Generators can be…
Visual…Aural…
Verbal…Structural…
…
![Page 25: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/25.jpg)
THREE phases of procedural evolvement towards a complex system
[1st phase:]
Design of structuring device:
rules +procedures
[2nd phase:]
Spatial extension + establishment of networks
[3rd phase:]
Genetic code of artificial units
![Page 26: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/26.jpg)
rules + procedurescreator/artist reader/user
Rules…
- something to be acquired/learned
(by the users/receivers/participants)
- Something enabling
(allowing more complex tasks to be carried out)
![Page 27: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/27.jpg)
rules + procedures
Rules…
- Based on sources that are outside of the work itself
![Page 28: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/28.jpg)
rules + procedures
Rules map out procedures…
e.g. Serial methods
![Page 29: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/29.jpg)
extension + networks
Exchange of languages (esp. between visual art and literature)
Visual and linguistic elements are turned into generators of a conscious and reflexive creative process
Practice of collaboration
![Page 30: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/30.jpg)
artificial objects
Celestino Soddu:
A generative project is “a concept-software that works producing three-dimensional unique and non-
repeatable events as possible and manifold expressions of the generating idea identified by the
designer as a visionary world.”
[see introduction to the Generative Art Conferences]
![Page 31: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/31.jpg)
artificial objects
KEY emphases in Soddu’s quote:
(1) What is possible (as opposed to what is actual):
-possible worlds, possible space, possible vision...
-work is the designer’s visionary world
-calls attention to the amazing, endless expansion of human creativity
![Page 32: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/32.jpg)
artificial objects
KEY emphases in Soddu’s quote:
(2) Design + Non-repeatable/unpredictable events
“design”: carefully planned structure
“non-repeatable/unpredictable events”: enhanced degree of complexity due to the use of the computer.
![Page 33: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/33.jpg)
artificial objects
KEY emphases in Soddu’s quote:
(3) The basic characteristics of computer
– as tools for storage in memory AND automated executive of tasks –
are turned into the core creative factors.
![Page 34: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/34.jpg)
artificial objects
In all cases,
There’s a shift of emphasis –
from more humanistic input in the creative process to the act of conception, leading to the design of rules and procedures
![Page 35: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/35.jpg)
artificial objects
Generative art brings back the human creativity that computer had killed in the beginning of the computer era:
Computers become…“tools that open new fields and enhance our understanding of creativity as an indissoluble synthesis between art and science.”
![Page 36: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/36.jpg)
Generative Visual Arts
TWO kinds of generative systems in 20th-C art history (Diane Kirkpatrick):
(1) Close generative systems:
[e.g. conceptual art]
in each work a closed analytic structure is set up which becomes a generator for exploration
![Page 37: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/37.jpg)
Generative Visual Arts
TWO kinds of generative systems in 20th-C art history (Diane Kirkpatrick):
(2) Organic generative systems:
A work begins with creating one word or idea and uses that to generate the next, and the next and so on…(creating generators)
![Page 38: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/38.jpg)
Generative Visual Arts: work examples
Josef Albers:(1) “Homage to Square” series (1950s)
Frank Stella:(2) “Protractor Series” (93 paintings based on 31 canvas formats each with 3 compositional types)
Sol LeWitt:(3) “Squares with Corners Torn off” (1975) X(4) “Modular Open Cube”
![Page 39: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/39.jpg)
Generative Visual Arts: work examples
Dorothea Rockburne:
(5) “Set” (1970) – inspiration from Mathematics
(6) “Radiant and Fields” (1971) – concept of units becoming more complex X
(7) “Drawing That Makes Itself” (1973) X
Jennifer Bartlett:
(8) “Rhapsody” (1975-76)
![Page 40: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/40.jpg)
Generative Visual Arts: work examples
Doug Huebler:
(9) “Duration Piece No. 6” (NY, 4/1969) – photo series X
(10) “Location Piece No. 6” (1970) X
(11) “Duration Piece No. 7”
(12) “Location Pieces No. 7”
![Page 41: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/41.jpg)
Generative Visual Arts: work examples
Sonia Sheridan:
(13) mono-prints series based on one image (1963-64)
(14) “Unwind the Wheel of Time” (1979) – eight drawings X
![Page 42: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/42.jpg)
II
Processes & Procedures…:
Conceptual Structured
![Page 43: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/43.jpg)
Algorithms: procedures in computing
Algorithm is the systematic procedures that computer science adopts to final correct solution to complex problems.
Algorithm is a procedure for solving a problem in terms of:
1) the actions to execute
2) the order in which these actions execute
![Page 44: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/44.jpg)
Setting workable procedures…
Generative principles ≠ the technical procedures
Sorting out solutions for a problem ≠ doing the actual scripting with a certain programming language
![Page 45: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/45.jpg)
Algorithms: actions in order
“rise-and-shine algorithm”[source: H.M. Deitel & P.J. Deitel (2005), C++: How to Program 5th edition, p. 121]
(1) Get out of bed
(2) Take off pajamas
(3) Take a shower
(4) Get dressed
(5) Eat breakfast
(6) Drive to workConsider other sequencing possibilities and the qualitative change in n
arrative meaning, e.g.:
(1) – (2) – (4) – (3) – (5) – (6)
![Page 46: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/46.jpg)
Algorithms: actions in order
Setting actions in the right order in a computer program is called program control.
“Structured programming”:Concerned with sequential execution, that is, the execution of statements one after the other in the order in which they are written.
![Page 47: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/47.jpg)
Actions in order: Structured Programming
Böhm and Jacopini (1960s) demonstrated that all programs could be written terms of only three control structures for sequential execution:
(1) Sequence structure: about succession(2) Selection structure (OR “decision structure”)
if a single selection statement (conditional performance) if…else a double selection statement (conditional performance) switch a multiple selection statement
(3) Repetition structure looping statements OR loops (loop-continuation condition)
for () while () iteration
recursion
![Page 48: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/48.jpg)
III.
Recursion? Iteration?
preliminaries
![Page 49: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/49.jpg)
Generating a possible / virtual work
Shifts–
more humanistic input in the creative process ↓conception↓design of rules and procedures
![Page 50: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/50.jpg)
An illustration of Recursion
Recursion is one class of algorithms
Recursion: the process of solving a large problem by reducing it to one or more sub-problems which are:
(1) Identical in structure to the original problems; and
(2) Simpler to solve
![Page 51: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/51.jpg)
An illustration of Recursion
How to collect $1000 in a fundraising event in which coupons are printed at $1 per piece:
One way to do it is to find one person who can donate the total amount…
[Source: Eric S. Roberts (1986), Thinking Recursively, pp. 1-4]
![Page 52: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/52.jpg)
How to collect $1000
One way to do it is to use an iterative solution:
[Pascal-like language]
PROCEDURE COLLECTION 1000; BEGIN FOR 1 := 1 TO 1000 DO Collect one dollar from person I END;
[Actionscript]
For (i=1; i<=1000; i++) operation performedInitial value condition (the loop will continue to execute until the condition is false)
![Page 53: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/53.jpg)
How to collect $1000: a recursive solution
Principle:
to break down the problem into identical, sub-problems that are simple to solve
Enlist 10 people, each in charge of raising $100.
Each person asked 10 volunteers who will raise $10 each.
Each volunteer will find 10 others who agree to raise $1.
![Page 54: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/54.jpg)
![Page 55: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/55.jpg)
How to collect $1000: a recursive solution
The use of recursion here is a “divide-and-conquer” method.
The original problem divides to form several simpler sub-problems, which branch into a set of simpler ones…until the simple cases [the simplest case(s), base case(s)]
![Page 56: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/56.jpg)
How to collect $1000: recursive solution
[Pascal-like language]
PROCEDURE COLLECTION (N); BEGIN IF N is $1 THEN Contribute the dollar directly ELSE BEGIN Find 10 people; Have each collect N/10 dollars; Return the money to your superior END END;
[Actionscript]
??????
![Page 57: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/57.jpg)
More illustrations on the use of Recursion
Mondrian-like computer art
1907-1914: Cubism (a modern art movement) flourished in Paris
[nature should be represented in terms of its primitive geometrical components, e.g. cylinders, cones, spheres
etc.]The Cubist community was dissolved at the outbreak of
WWI ideas influenced and shaped the development of abstract art, e.g. works of Piet Mondrian, characterized by rigid patterning of vertical and horizontal lines.
![Page 58: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/58.jpg)
![Page 59: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/59.jpg)
![Page 60: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/60.jpg)
![Page 61: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/61.jpg)
![Page 62: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/62.jpg)
![Page 63: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/63.jpg)
![Page 64: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/64.jpg)
Iteration? Recursion?
There’s a Hole in the Bucket
There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza
There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole
Then fix it, dear Charlie, dear Charlie
Then fix it, dear Charlie, dear Charlie, fix it
With what shall I fix it, dear Liza, dear Liza
With a straw, dear Charlie, dear Charlie
But the straw is too long, dear Liza, dear Liza
Then cut it, dear Charlie, dear Charlie
With what shall I cut it, dear Liza, dear Liza
With a knife, dear Charlie, dear Charlie
![Page 65: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/65.jpg)
Iteration? Recursion?
There’s a Hole in the Bucket (cont’d)
But the knife is too dull, dear Liza, dear LizaThen sharpen it, dear Charlie, dear Charlie
With what shall I sharpen it, dear Liza, dear LizaWith a stone, dear Charlie, dear Charlie
But the stone is too dry, dear Liza, dear LizaThen wet it, dear Charlie, dear Charlie
With what shall I wet it, dear Liza, dear LizaWith water, dear Charlie, dear Charlie
But how shall I fetch it, dear Liza, dear LizaIn a bucket, dear Charlie, dear Charlie
There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza,There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole
![Page 66: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/66.jpg)
IV.
Experimental Literature:
“multiplicity” / “assemblage”
![Page 67: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/67.jpg)
“Reader-as-author”
[A] text is made of multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue, parody, contestation, but there is one place where this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader, not…the author…. To give writing its future…the birth of the reader mus
t be at the cost of the death of the Author.
--Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author”
![Page 68: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/68.jpg)
“Reader-as-author”
• reader-as-author
• author-as-reader
• multiple authors
[Deleuze]
assemblage (idea of single author, single belief, 知行合一 and transcendental self overthrown)
![Page 69: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/69.jpg)
The Infinite Possibilities of “Conceivable Books”
We must make a careful distinction…between systems and texts. A system (for instance, a linguistic system) is the whole of the possibilities displayed by a given language. In this framework it holds the principle of unlimited semiosis…. The system is perhaps finite but unlimited. …In this sense certainly all the conceivable books are comprised by and within a good dictionary. …If conceived in such a way, hypertext can transform every reader into an auth
or.
-- Umberto Eco, “Afterword” in The Future of the Book, ed. Geoffrey Nunberg (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press), p. 302
![Page 70: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/70.jpg)
The Infinite Possibilities of “Conceivable Books”
• A finite system can produce the infinite.
• Structural linguistics: langue and parole
![Page 71: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/71.jpg)
Deleuze & Guattari: A Thousand Plateaus / Rhizome
Writing is the assemblage of the un-attributable multiple, as the
measure of something else.
![Page 72: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/72.jpg)
Deleuze and Guattari (in A Thousand Plateaus):
“A book has neither object nor subject; it is made of variously formed matters, and very different dates and speeds. To attribute the book to a subject is to overlook this working of matters, and the exteriority of their relations. … In a book, as in all things, there are lines of articulation or segmentarity, strata and territories; but also lines of flight, movements of deterritorialization and destratification. Comparative rates of flow on these lines produce phenomena of relative slowness and viscosity, or,
on the contrary, of acceleration and rupture. All this, lines and measurable speeds, constitutes an assemblage.
”
![Page 73: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/73.jpg)
Deleuze & Guattari: A Thousand Plateaus / Rhizome
• “There is no difference between what a book talks about and how it is made. Therefore a book has no object. As an assemblage, a book has only itself, in connection with other assemblages and in relation to other bodies without organs. We will never ask what a book means, as signified or signifier. … We will ask what it functions with, in connection with what other things it does or does not transmit intensities …”
![Page 74: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/74.jpg)
Deleuze & Guattari: A Thousand Plateaus / Rhizome
“A book exists only through the outside and on the outside. A book itself is a little machine; what is the relation of this literary machine to a war machine, love machine, revolutionary machine, etc. – and an abstract machine that sweeps them along?”
![Page 75: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/75.jpg)
open book / open literature / open work
• reader-as-author
• author-as-reader
• multiple authors
![Page 76: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/76.jpg)
Spatial transformation
Serial transformation via repetition and variation…
e.g.:
• 沒想到一張椅子會弄成一個爛攤子。• 沒想到一張椅子會弄出兩條人命。• 沒想到一張椅子會弄出三個驚喜。• 沒想到一個願望會弄出三種失望。• 該想到所謂願望絕對有可能變成失望!
![Page 77: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/77.jpg)
Gerard Genette: “trans-textuality”
[French narrative theorist] Genette divides the variety of texts into the following:
• intertext
• metatext
• hypertext
• paratext
• architext
![Page 78: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/78.jpg)
more examples
(from the OuLiPo group for Potential Literature:)
• Italo Calvino:
How I Wrote One of My Books• Georges Perec:
Life: a User’s Manual
![Page 79: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/79.jpg)
More examples
[for inspiration]
*Life in a Garden
[what we shall materialize]
(from the OuLiPo)*Paul Fournel: Suburbia; [Foreword by Marguerite Duras, Afterword by François Caradec, and translated by Henry Mathews. Source: Bibliothèque Oulipienne No. 46; collected in OuliPo Laboratory (Atlas Anti-Classics, 1995), pp. i-viii, 1-16.]
![Page 80: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/80.jpg)
More examples
[what we have achieved]
*Eva Lam’s “Kiss the Princess”*Janice’s “working side by side with dictionaries”*Linda & Keith’s “Crypt-machine” / 秘語靈機 (“Writing Machine Collective e1)
*Sam Yiu’s rule-driven writing games (Independent Studies 2005)
[advanced examples]
*emergent graphics: Levitated, Jared Tarbell –http://www.levitated.net
![Page 81: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/81.jpg)
Raymond QueneauHundred Thousand Billion Poems
Digitized versions…
http://www.bullfrog117.com/essay/one-hundred-thousand-billion-poems.php
http://www.bevrowe.info/Poems/QueneauRandom.html
![Page 82: Generative Arts & Literature: an overview Linda Lai Spring 2008](https://reader036.vdocument.in/reader036/viewer/2022062518/56649ed25503460f94be124c/html5/thumbnails/82.jpg)
What is a Machine?
Mechanical design:Simple systemCentral commander
Point-to-pointMultiple connectivity
Data-processing
EMERGENCE / COMPLEXITY / BUTTERFLY EFFECTS / CELLULAR AUTOMATA