Summary
This is a critical review of an article by Friedrich W. Block and Rui Torres titled Poetic Transformations in(to) the Digital. In the article the authors explore various projects from the field of digital poetics in order to understand how different people apply the concepts of generative literature to support their works.
Generative literature
To let the reader better understand what is being discussed in the article a clarification of the term generative literature is required. As stated by Balpe generative literature is a product of continuously changing text. This process is defined by a dictionary and a specific set of rules and algorithms. Generative literature is also a very specific form of digital literature which is changing most of the concepts previously established by classical literature (Balpe, 2005).
An important issue here is that the author is not required to write the final texts at all, but just work at the level of establishing the rules, dictionary entities and conceptual models. According to Pascal the artist is no more the author of the object while the task of creating a piece of art is delegated to some device (Corcuff & Pascal, 2008).
Secondly none of the final texts will be presented to the reader in exactly the same way. Each one of them will be different and unique in some specific way thus each text seems to be independent from other. That is also why Balpe feels that generative literature is an especially nice fit for poetry (Balpe, 2005).
Putting the concept in practice
Torres and Block focus their attention on specific outcomes of putting the concept of generative literature into practice in the field of digital poetry. Several examples are offered to the reader. One of these examples focuses on the works of António Aragão who was the organizer of many publications of experimental poetry in Portugal (Block & Torres, 2007). According to the authors Aragão focused on creating collage-poems putting them together from texts found in newspapers. An interesting point is that Aragão supplied one reading of a poem but also let the readers create their own poems by making unique readings. Block and Torres state that this principal can be very well supported by digital media because cyber texts can be “dynamic, open and randomly generated.”
Some of the projects experimented with creating lists of words and letting the readers adapt those lists in their own poems according to their taste. Once a certain state of a poem was achieved the user could archive the result on a server for later reference (Block & Torres, 2007).
Adding audio to the mix
One interesting way of using generative literature was conducted by Oskar Pastior who recorded the reading of his poem on audio and then divided the recording into small chunks. Later an algorithm was created which purpose was to take the chunks of audio and mix and match them in various ways in order to create numerous variations of the original poem (Block & Torres, 2007).
The role of machines
Block and Torres specifically turn their attention to the old question of “how close the machine could come to the poet, and in exactly which respect we have to realize the differences.” They reach a realization that machines lack the required imagination and a “unique modulation of an individual reading”. Marie Pascal explores another aspect of this question trying to understand what role randomness plays in the process of creating art. She states that although randomness may sometimes be seen by people as a limitation of their control, however randomness and chance can bring very interesting and unexpected results when used wisely. This is also illustrated by artists who have used chance “in many ways throughout the ages”. According to Pascal nature uses these techniques extensively in order to create “diversity as well as identity.” (Corcuff & Pascal, 2008)
Evaluation of the text
The article itself is well-structured and it was mostly clear what the authors were trying to say. However some paragraphs were harder to understand possibly due to the use of complicated words and sentence constructions. Overall it seems better to use simpler terms in order to explain certain thoughts as to make sure that the reader is able to understand the delivered idea exactly as it was intended.
Critique
After reading the article I was left with a feeling of not seeing the full picture of what generative literature and digital poetry is. Only after reviewing several other articles mentioned in this assessment was I able to come up with a clearer understanding of the topic. This might very well be the intended purpose of the article as it appears to be targeted at the audience already familiar with the issues being discussed by the authors. Still maybe even a brief introduction of the principals of generative literature would be helpful.
Conclusion
Generative art in general and literature in particular is a fascinating subject. In the reviewed article Block and Torres try to illustrate how the methods of this philosophy have been applied by various authors in order to create interesting works of art. Generative literature seems to be a very nice fit for digital poetry and this point is also solidified by the article.
Bibliography
Balpe, J.-P. (2005). Principles and Processes of Generative Literature. Retrieved November 27, 2010, from Dichtung-Digital: http://www.brown.edu/Research/dichtung-digital/2005/1/Balpe/index.htm
Block, F. W., & Torres, R. (2007). Poetic Transformations in(to) the Digital. Retrieved November 27, 2010, from e-Poetry: http://po-ex.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=97&Itemid=31&lang=
Corcuff, & Pascal, M. (2008). Chance and generativity. GA2008, 11th Generative Art Conference , 189-199.
. Hopefully the state of things has changed by now as we have been able to better acquaint ourselves with the theoretical basis of the course and the topics being covered.
