automatic text generation

‘’ was derived from Gertrude Stein, . It was first published in Picador New Writing 1995.

"Neuromancing Miss Stein" was freely adapted from a from a loose draft resulting from computer-aided analyses [using Brekdown] of letter-group frequencies in two samples of text, one from Gertrude Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B.Toklas, and William Gibson's Neuromancer. The index and frequency tables from these analyses were then blended, and the draft text regenerated from the resulting combination. First published in the 1995 print book Picador New Writing 1995, the story was later posted to the web by the author.

"Carousel" was freely adapted from a from a loose draft resulting from computer-aided analyses [using Brekdown] of letter-group frequencies in two samples of text, one from Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer and the other from Yasunari Kawabata's The Master of Go. The index and frequency tables from these analyses were then blended, and the draft text regenerated from the resulting combination. First published in the 1998 print book _Different Hands_, the story was later posted to the web by the author.

Les Dizains is a combinatory program/ text generator created by Marcel Bénabou. The work was presented at the Pompidou Center in 1985. The online version for the ALAMO website was made by Eric Joncquel. The program generates “dizains” (poems consisting of ten lines) in an exponential method. The “texton” (the original text the program uses to generate new poems) is one ten-line poem with five pairs of rhymes. The program allows the reader to access different permutations of these ten original lines. The generator uses a randomization function with stylistic constraints related to the rhyme structure. The constraints make it so that any two lines that rhyme can only be separated by 0, 1 or 2 other lines. These constraints yield a large but not unmanageable number of “scriptons” (possible new poems) (145,920). For example, it would not be impossible to read all of these poems over the course of several years. In this program, the role of the reader is to interpret the different permutations produced by the randomization function of the generator. The reader clicks on the arrow at the bottom of the web page to signal the creation of a new variant of the “dizain.” The following is an example of one possible permutation: On entre en souriant dans le berceau de l'ombre La vie s'est réfugiée au profond des miroirs Les rues muettes me regardent sans me voir Pour retrouver l'enfant survivant aux décombres Le feu du ciel alors s'est éteint brusquement Encore enveloppé des ruses du printemps Je débarque parfois dans ma ville déserte Tout est rêve et la vie et l'amour et la mort Au-dessus de la craie qui poudre les fleurs vertes Quel cadavre la nuit ne reprend son essor The themes found throughout the poem can be best summarized by what here is line number 8. « Tout est rêve et la vie et l'amour et la mort ». (“Everything is dreams and life and love and death”). The lexis used in the poem includes numerous references to sad and somber subjects. There are also several references to distinct actions. (« Le feu…s’éteint » « on entre » « je débarque ») (“The fire goes out” “One enters” “I disembark”). When they are read in a different order, the reader can interpret the story differently. The distance between the rhyming lines can also have an effect on the reader’s interpretation. The different permutations can connect or isolate certain lines, changing the overall meaning of the poem. The program creates a “prise” effect because the reader can familiarize his or herself with the ten lines and can continue to generate new poems according to his or her preferences. The reader therefore develops a sense of ownership over the poem that he or she chooses, even though he or she cannot directly manipulate the order of the lines or rhymes.

(Source: Erin Stigers)

“Locutions introuvables” is a literary program inspired by Marcel Bénabou’s Ouilipien method published in The Oulipien Library N.25 in 1984. This program was presented in the “Les Immatériaux” exposition of the Centre Pompidou in 1985, but it was Éric Joncquel who ported it to the website ALAMO (l’Atelier de Littérature Assistée par la Mathématique et les Ordinateurs). The program is also inspired by the notion of “langage cuit” (over-done language) by Robert Desnos. Entitled “Quinze locutions introuvables, mais qui doivent enrichir notre sagesse” (15 lost expressions, but that ought to enrich our wisdom), this program takes one hundred and forty expressions and cuts them up into two parts and recombines them in order to form original expressions. Thus, the “head” and the “tail” of the expressions are mixed up to create lexical chimera. The program works by composing expressions randomly. That is to say, the creation of these “lost expressions” is a function of the combination of different elements that provides the reader with the opportunity of interpreting the text, or rather the scripton, in a personal manner. For example, one of the expressions created by the program is “tirer le diable par le bout du nez.” This expression closely resembles the real expression “tirer le diable par la queue.” Therefore, the resemblance could confuse or trouble the reader, according to the reader’s reaction confronted by an unknown yet familiar expression. In spite of that, this complicity of the program grants the reader a level of liberty in interpreting the expression and giving it an independent sense. The viability of the lost expression does not therefore come from the lexical sense of its elements but rather the sense that the reader creates. Since the lost expressions imitate the structure of true expressions, the reader can use this complicity when reading them. As such, it can be said that the program produces an esthetic of complicity. With more than one hundred and forty expressions cut up and recombined, there are an exponential number of expressions the reader can form by generating them. In this way, the program truly succeeds at enriching the wisdom of the reader by conferring unto him/her original expressions.

(Source: Jonathan Baillehache)

Random Access Memory is a "dyslexic" text generator that sources its information from the Web. There is an English and a French version.