Print publication

The blog Ihpil: Láhppon mánáid bestejeaddji was presented as the genuine diary of a 19-year-old, lesbian Sámi girl studying in Tromsø, using the pseudonym Ihpil. The blog starts on her first day as a student in August 2007, and lasts until she drowns in December of that year. Later the blog was published as a print book. In 2010, a journalist discovered that nobody drowned in Tromsø harbour that day, and Sigbjørn Skåden revealed himself to be the author, claiming that he had always intended to do so at some point (see NRK 4 Feb 2011). 

The poems in Articulations are the output of a computer program that extracts linguistic features from over two million lines of public domain poetry, then traces fluid paths between the lines based on their similarities. By turns propulsive and meditative, the poems demonstrate an intuitive coherence found outside the bounds of intentional semantic constraints.

(Source: Counterpath catalog copy)

Mexica: 20 Years–20 Stories [20 años–20 historias] contains 20 short narratives developed by the computer program MEXICA. Plots describe fictional situations related to the Mexicas (also known as Aztecs), ancient inhabitants of what today is Mexico City. This is the first book of short-stories produced completely by a creative agent capable of evaluating and making judgments about its own work, as well as incorporating into its knowledge-base the pieces it produces. By contrast with other, statistical models, MEXICA is inspired by how humans actually develop fictional stories. The book, in both Spanish and English, also includes source references related to the program. Preface by Fox Harrell.

(Source: Publisher's catalog page)

ased on two iconic American novels, A Noise Such as a Man Might Make is a computer conflation using a well-known algorithm that has been applied to language since the middle of the twentieth century. The two source texts share many stylistic and thematic features, both narrating the ritualistic, circular struggle of a man and a boy against hostile environments. The other characters consist of the cold, hunger, physical pain, emotional pain, rain, snow, roads, and the sea. More musical than anecdotal, this novel aims to portray a certain model of masculinity held by Western society for centuries and finding a special place in warlike circumstances. A Noise Such as a Man Might Make is the history of a dying model of manhood, the now troubled paradigm of men as warriors and survivors. The book includes an Afterword by Nick Montfort.

Originally published in 1969, The Death of the Novel and Other Stories remains among the most memorable creations of an unforgettable age. Irrepressibly experimental in both content and form, these anti-fictions set out to rescue experience from its containment within artistic convention and bourgeois morality. Equal parts high modernist aesthete and borscht belt comedian, Sukenick joins avant-garde art with street slang and cartoons, expressing his generation's anxieties by simultaneously mocking and validating them. These are original works by a writer who will try absolutely anything.

source: GoodReads description

An (e)stranger is invisible, exotic, unidentifiable, rude, hybrid, 
blurry, deformed, subversive, incomprehensible, complex, pliable, lonely, abject, harder and more fragile at the same time … they are more resilient, more inventive, know how to protect themselves, are good observers, look around a lot, see and ask questions about things that seem to be selfevident …

“There is so much to enjoy in this book. It is all-at-once instruction manual, poetry and a series of vignettes of contemporary encounters in language-less places.” Ruth Catlow 23-09-2014

A computer-generated novel about gun violence in the United States.

This novel in three sections follows a nameless man on a journey west. Flat, neutral-sounding declarations meander around a variety of encyclopedic topics — firearms and mass shootings, but also homosexuality, autism, and the goth subculture. The language becomes increasingly simplified and fragmented. The 2018 edition reflects current events and was generated with up-to-date text and links from some of the writers struggling the hardest to produce explanations.

The 2018 edition went on sale July 4, 2018. Hard West Turn will be regenerated and published annually. Produced on the MIT Press Bookstore Espresso Book Machine. Edition of 13 (corresponding to the original 13 states) + 3 artist’s proofs (red, white, and blue), numbered and signed by the author/programmer.

The 2018 edition was copy-edited and designed by the proprietor of Bad Quarto (who is also the programmer/author). It was proofread by him with the kind assistance of Stephanie Strickland. Specifically, spelling and punctuation corrections were made, with U.S. spellings now used throughout. Sentences with proper nouns that remained were manually removed. No other changes were made to the output, which derives almost entirely from the English and Simple English Wikipedias.