D. Fox Harrell considers what is computational about composition, and describes the GRIOT system for generating literary texts.
The source is the essay-review on www.electronicbookreview.com written by D. Fox Harrell
"The GRIOT computational narrative system utilizes techniques suitable for representing meaning and expression such as the thoughts in the paragraph above. GRIOT is a computer program developed to implement systems that output narratives in response to user input."
"In algebraic semiotics the structure of complex signs, including multimedia signs (e.g., a film with closed captioning), and the blending of such structures are described using semiotic systems (also called sign systems) and semiotic morphisms (mappings between sign systems).
This does not imply a belief that meaning can be reduced to mathematical formalization; on the contrary, the underlying theories in cognitive linguistics assert that meaning is considered to be contextual and dynamic, and has a basis in embodied human experience. This means that meaning is "actively constructed by staggeringly complex mental operations" such as conceptual blending (Ibid., 8). Furthermore, meaning depends upon the fact that humans exist "in a world that is inseparable from our bodies, our language, and our social history" (Varela, Thompson and Rosch 1991). These underlying assumptions about the nature of meaning and the use of formalization are some of the characteristics that distinguish GRIOT from other work in poetry and narrative generation."
"My longer-term project involves using this technical and theoretical framework as a basis for creating further computational narrative artworks where in addition to textual input, users can interact with graphical or gamelike interfaces. This user interaction will still drive the generation of new metaphors and concepts, but along with text will also result in blends of graphical and/or audio media."
All quotes were directly rewritten from the essay.
[meme.garden] is an Internet service that blends software art and search tool to visualize participants' interests in prevalent streams of information, encouraging browsing and interaction between users in real time, through time. Utilizing the WordNet lexical reference system from Princeton University, [meme.garden] introduces concepts of temporality, space, and empathy into a network-oriented search tool. Participants search for words which expand contextually through the use of a lexical database. English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized into floating synonym "seeds," each representing one underlying lexical concept. When participants "plant" their interests, each becomes a tree that "grows" over time. Each organism's leaves are linked to related streaming RSS feeds, and by interacting with their own and other participants' trees, participants create a contextual timescape in which interests can be seen growing and changing within an environment that endures.
We Descend: Archives Pertaining to Egderus Scriptor first appeared in electronic form in 1997, published by Eastgate Systems on a floppy disk as a Storyspace Reader for Macintosh computers; as of 2018, the work is available on the internet, encoded in HTML5 and CSS3, the latest in a series of at least a dozen necessary "upgrades" to its software instantiation. Throughout this period, techology for presenting archival material has continued to transform at an increasing rate. At the same time, previously unknown writings have come to light; new methods of processing writings have been developed; and certain assumptions guiding the preparation of previous volumes have had to be updated as well. This paper will focus on some of the most pressing issues facing the primary "minder of gaps" in such an enterprise, the Curator, of which Bill Bly is only the most recent. Perhaps the largest gap to be bridged in our comprehension of such an enterprise is that between the impression of tidiness and order that any "finished" instantiation — with its neatly labeled apparati, finding aids, annotations, and commentary — presents to the reader, in contrast to the extensive dithering, fussing, and floundering actually required to herd together a collection of writings that have been gathered and transmitted over a span of many generations. Once brought together, these texts must be arranged, sequenced, and linked to one another in an organization that facilitates their being read, understood (each by itself and as a member of a group), pondered, and then easily located again after being laid aside. The immaterial "space" defined by this "placement" of such "objects" in relation to each other — as if they were furniture and other appurtenances arranged in a room — is useless until its design can be mentally grasped by the reader, and some person must perform this essentially hospitalic function, that of welcoming the reader into the space inhabited by the writings of the Archives. In doing so, this hôtelier (the Curator, whether named or not), leaves a trace that itself can be "read". In We Descend, all such persons are regarded as of equal importance to the original Authors whose work the reader has come here to encounter. The first Curator was Egderus himself, a scribe who discovered a cache of ancient texts, to which he added writings by his contemporaries as well as his own recorded thoughts and memories, thereby creating the first "holdings" that form the kernel of the Archives now bearing his name. This process of amalgamation was recapitulated some generations later by an unknown Scholar who rediscovered the long-forgotten holdings of Egderus and passed it along, bridging the gap between Egderus and Bill Bly, whose mission has been to render the Archives into hypertext form.
Source: https://sites.grenadine.uqam.ca/sites/nt2/en/elo2018/schedule/614/Welco…
A presentation and discussion of the ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Base, an open-access contributory database to document the international field of electronic literature, eight years after its launch. A session from the ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Base symposium at the University of Bergen, April 26, 2018.
Re-published interview with Mark Bernstein, founder and Chief Scientist of Eastgate Systems.
Linda Brigham works through Embodying Technesis by Mark Hansen.
Lisette Gonzales reviews a book of essays by Matthew Fuller that examines the way we are programmed by software.
In this paper, I depart from the notion of digital literature trying to look beyond the linguistic layer of digitability as proposed by Simanovski (2010). Thus, the main goal of my discussion is to face some specific problems regarding both theoretical and instructional perceptions of digital literature: the creative process, the technological conditions and software limits in the production of a media art object, and the literary materialities digitally present. To demonstrate how these constructs and circumstances affect the production and the reception of an object perceived as literary and digital from its planning, I will propose a challenging reading of O Cosmonauta by Alckmar dos Santos and Wilton Azevedo.
(Source: Author's Abstract, ICDMT 2016)
This presentation provides an overview of Hatsune Miku, a virtual pop idol, and showcases a work by the speaker that uses her image and voice as platforms for the creation of electronic literature. Hatsune Miku is a multitude of things at once: a pop star, a software product that uses Yamaha’s Vocaloid text-to-song technology, a fictional character, and ultimately a global collaborative media platform. The electronic literature project presented, “Miku Forever,” uses Miku’s global fanbase as a kind of raw material. An endlessly recombinatory pop song, the lyrics sung by Miku for “Miku Forever” are algorithmically generated from a corpus of songs she has previously sung, and her digital body and dance moves are sourced from open-licensed, fan-created assets available on the web.
The author discusses his computer music composition, Voyager, which employs a computer-driven, interactive “virtual improvising orchestra” that analyzes an improvisor’s performance in real time, generating both complex responses to the musician’s playing and independent behavior arising from the program’s own internal processes. The author contends that notions about the nature and function of music are embedded in the structure of software-based music systems and that interactions with these systems tend to reveal characteristics of the community of thought and culture that produced them. Thus, Voyager is considered as a kind of computer music-making embodying African-American aesthetics and musical practices.