A generative fictional birdwatching guide, with an essay on taxonomy, formal logic, and the OuLiPo written in the comments to Prolog code.
FIGURES texts are constructed as a literary illustration of the Golden Number and the Fibonacci sequence. As a mathematical and aesthetic constant, the Golden Number is a "matrix" formal for determining the number of words and lines of texts and how they fit together one inside the other. FIGURES texts are therefore of Golden Rectangles where words are used as measurement unit horizontal and unit vertical measurement lines.
Les textes de FIGURES sont construits comme une illustration littéraire du Nombre d'Or et de la suite de Fibonacci. En tant que constante mathématique et esthétique, le Nombre d'Or constitue une « matrice » formelle qui permet de déterminer le nombre de mots et de lignes des textes ainsi que la façon dont ils s'imbriquent l'un dans l'autre. Les textes de FIGURES sont donc des Rectangles d'Or où les mots servent d'unité de mesure horizontale et les lignes d'unité de mesure verticale.
With Fibonacci's Daughter the challenge was to capture the Fibonacci precepts--elements of predictability in natural forms--in a narrative. His mathematical sequence of numbers and golden sector were sources for narrative shape, structural organization, and design motif. I wanted the story to have a sense of spiraling both in and out at the same time--disappearing at the center and diffusing at the margins. The structure is based on the Fibonacci golden mean; the spatial access is through a shopping mall that is a golden square. Backgrounds, images, and motifs are drawn from Fibonacci's work. The story has, as well, a shadow of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, "Rappacini's Daughter," in a certain altered perception of pattern. Borges lurks.
(Source: Author's note at The New River)
