tokyo

Inspired by the endlessly repeated automated announcements in Tokyo train and subway stations, this is a generative poem called "自動化" in its Japanese version, and "Automation" in English.

It uses the syntax of the familiar announcement "１番線ドアが閉まります。ご注意ください。" ("The doors on platform 1 are closing. Please be careful"). Every 8 seconds, a script generates a new line by randomly selecting the platform number, subject, verb, and exhortation from a preset list. It displays the result on the screen and then generates a new line. Browsers capable of speech synthesis will also read the text aloud in either English or Japanese.
(Source: Author's statement, ELC vol. 3)

A generated poem written by Campana in Japanese (自動化) and English (Automation), this piece is inspired by the automated announcements that are produced, seemingly endlessly, in Tokyo’s train and subway stations.
While highly situated in a particular city, this work also has international qualities: Automated train announcements are not, themselves, unique to Tokyo, and the odd, disjointed world that these generated texts evoke could resonate with the novels of Márquez as much as with those of Murakami. As simple as these automated statements are, they are consistent with the discourse of magical realism by announcing bizarre, unreal occurrences with complete nonchalance. They also ask the reader to participate in the curious projected world by making requests, politely giving (impossible) instructions.
The text generation in both versions is accomplished by a simple JavaScript program which can be studied and even modified by the intrepid reader of code; the addition of text-to-speech output provides an experience similar, in terms of media channels, to that in the station.

(Source: Editorial statement, ELC vol. 3)

This manga-inspired graphic novel app is about thirteen-year-old Tavs, who chooses his name (meaning “silent”) when he writes a declaration to his parents: “From now on I will be silent”. The story is about the loneliness and loss Tavs feels upon the death of his twin and his family’s move to Tokyo. TAVS is a fantasy narrative with gothic, humorous and boy-meets-girl elements and references to haiku and manga. The app mixes text, music, still images, sound effects and animation into an immersive aesthetic experience. For example, as we read of Tavs’ sorrow and frustration the words begin to fall down from the screen and the reader has to take an active part in the reading process by grabbing the sentences. The chapters show great variation, operating between expressive powerful animations and stills and black pages, between strong sound effects and silence and between spoken and written words, right up to the final fight between the twins; between life and death. (source: ELO 2015 catalog)

A poetry generator for the imaginary city. Tokyo Garage is a remix of Nick Montfort's "Taroko Gorge" -- a nature poem generator built in javascript. Rettberg modified the code and substituted all of the language of Montfort's work to create this poetry generator, which plays with received stereotypes of the Tokyo metropolis and of urbanity in general. A machinimatic reading was prepared for the DAC 2009 conference, including a clown reading the poem to an imaginary audience.