Generative literature

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Generative literature
FeaturesPoetry and fiction generated automatically, usually using computers.
Related genres
Electronic literature, Digital poetry, Generative art

Generative literature is poetry or fiction that is automatically generated, often using computers. It is a genre of electronic literature, and also related to generative art.

Contents

John Clark's Latin Verse Machine (1830–1843) is probably the first example of mechanised generative literature, [1] [2] while Christopher Strachey's love letter generator (1952) is the first digital example. [3] With the large language models (LLMs) of the 2020s, generative literature is becoming increasingly common.

Definitions

Hannes Bajohr defines generative literature as literature involving "the automatic production of text according to predetermined parameters, usually following a combinatory, sometimes aleatory logic, and it emphasizes the production rather than the reception of the work (unlike, say, hypertext)." [4]

In his book Electronic Literature, Scott Rettberg connects generative literature to avant-garde literary movements like Dada, Surrealism, Oulipo and Fluxus. [5] Bajohr argues that conceptual art is also an important reference. [4]

Paradigms of generative literature

Bajohr describes two main paradigms of generative literature: the sequential paradigm, where the text generation is "executed as a sequence of rule-steps" and employs linear algorithms, and the connectionist paradigm, which is based on neural nets. [4] The latter leads to what Bajohr calls a algorithmic empathy: "a non-anthropocentric empathy aimed not at the psychological states of the artists but at understanding the process of the work’s material production." [4]

Poetry generation

The first examples of automated generative literature are poetry: John Clark's mechanical Latin Verse Machine (1830–1843) produced lines of hexameter verse in Latin, [1] [2] and Christopher Strachey's love letter generator (1952), programmed on the Manchester Mark 1 computer, generated short, satirical love letters. [3]

Examples of generative poetry using artificial neural networks include David Jhave Johnston's ReRites.

Narrative generation

Story generators have often followed specific narratological theories of how stories are constructed. An early example is Grimes' Fairy Tales, the "first to take a grammar-based approach and the first to operationalize Propp's famous model." [6] Mike Sharples and Rafael Peréz y Peréz's book Story Machines gives a detailed history of story generation. [7]

Storyland by Nanette Wylde is an example of generative narrative. Jonathan Baillehache compares Storyland to Surrealist writing. Baillehache states, "When compared to earlier uses of chance operation in literature, a piece like this one resembles some of the automatic writings produced by André Breton and Philippe Soupault in their collective work The Magnetic Fields. . . The difference between Nanette Wylde’s Storyland and Breton and Soupault’s Magnetic Fields is that the former is produced according to a computational algorithm involving randomizers and user interaction, and the latter by two free-wheeling human subjects." [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Generative art</span> Art created by a set of rules, often using computers

Generative art is post-conceptual art that has been created with the use of an autonomous system. An autonomous system in this context is generally one that is non-human and can independently determine features of an artwork that would otherwise require decisions made directly by the artist. In some cases the human creator may claim that the generative system represents their own artistic idea, and in others that the system takes on the role of the creator.

Consequences is an old parlour game in a similar vein to the Surrealist game exquisite corpse and Mad Libs.

Hypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature, characterized by the use of hypertext links that provide a new context for non-linearity in literature and reader interaction. The reader typically chooses links to move from one node of text to the next, and in this fashion arranges a story from a deeper pool of potential stories. Its spirit can also be seen in interactive fiction.

Digital poetry is a form of electronic literature, displaying a wide range of approaches to poetry, with a prominent and crucial use of computers. Digital poetry can be available in form of CD-ROM, DVD, as installations in art galleries, in certain cases also recorded as digital video or films, as digital holograms, on the World Wide Web or Internet, and as mobile phone apps.

Electronic literature or digital literature is a genre of literature where digital capabilities such as interactivity, multimodality or algorithmic text generation are used aesthetically. Works of electronic literature are usually intended to be read on digital devices, such as computers, tablets, and mobile phones. They cannot be easily printed, or cannot be printed at all, because elements crucial to the work cannot be carried over onto a printed version.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nick Montfort</span> American poet & digital media professor

Nick Montfort is a poet and professor of digital media at MIT, where he directs a lab called The Trope Tank. He also holds a part-time position at the University of Bergen where he leads a node on computational narrative systems at the Center for Digital Narrative. Among his publications are seven books of computer-generated literature and six books from the MIT Press, several of which are collaborations. His work also includes digital projects, many of them in the form of short programs. He lives in New York City.

Brian Kim Stefans is an American poet known for his work in experimental poetry and electronic literature. He is a professor of poetry, new media and screenplay studies in the English department of UCLA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Eureka</span> Machine for generating Latin verses

The Eureka, also known as the Latin Verse Machine, is a mid-19th century machine for generating Latin verses, created and exhibited by the Quaker inventor John Clark of Bridgwater.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">María Mencía</span>

María Mencía is a Spanish-born media artist and researcher working as a Senior Lecturer at Kingston University in London, United Kingdom. Her artistic work is widely recognized in the field of electronic literature, and her scholarship on digital textuality has been widely published. She holds a Ph.D. in Digital Poetics and Digital Art at the Chelsea College of Arts of the University of the Arts London and studied English Philology at the Complutense University of Madrid.

In 1952, Christopher Strachey wrote a combinatory algorithm for the Manchester Mark 1 computer which could create love letters. The poems it generated have been seen as the first work of electronic literature and a queer critique of heteronormative expressions of love.

John Howland Cayley is a Canadian pioneer of writing in digital media as well as a theorist of the practice, a poet, and a Professor of Literary Arts at Brown University.

David Jhave Johnston is a Canadian poet, videographer, and motion graphics artist working chiefly in digital and computational media,. and a researcher at the Center for Digital Narrative at the University of Bergen. This artist's work is often attributed, simply, to the name Jhave.

ReRites is a literary work of "Human + A.I. poetry" by David Jhave Johnston that used neural network models trained to generate poetry which the author then edited. ReRites won the Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature in 2022.

This is How You Will Die is an interactive digital poetry and art game created by Jason Nelson, a new media artist, digital poet, and lecturer. Released in 2005, the game combines elements of poetry, digital art, and chance-based mechanics to explore the concept of death and the unpredictability of life.

Netprov is "networked, improvised literature" or collaborative literary improvisations performed on the internet. The word netprov is a portmanteau of "networked" and "improv" as in improvisational theatre. Netprov is considered a genre of electronic literature.

John Clark (1785-1853) was a British printer and inventor who created the first automated text generator, the Latin Verse Machine between 1830 and 1843. Clark also patented a method for rubberising cloth that was used for air beds.

haikU is a browser-based, audience participatory, haiku poem project. The project displays randomly generated haiku poems, and allows the Internet audience to contribute to the project's database of haiku lines. The project is known as a work of electronic literature and for its use of an evolving database, and for the relative coherence of its output. It was created by Nanette Wylde in 2001 and is considered a form of interactive digital poetry.

Storyland is a browser-based narrative work of electronic literature. The project is included in the first Electronic Literature Collection. It was created by Nanette Wylde in 2000 and is considered a form of Combinatory Narrative or Generative Poetry which is created with the use of the computer's random function.

Nanette Wylde is an American artist and writer. Wylde is known for her early incorporation of digital media as a fine art media, her work in net.art, electronic literature, and artwork which takes book form.

References

  1. 1 2 Sharples, Mike (2023-01-01). "John Clark's Latin Verse Machine: 19th Century Computational Creativity". IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. 45 (1): 31–42. arXiv: 2301.05570 . doi:10.1109/MAHC.2023.3241258. ISSN   1058-6180.
  2. 1 2 Hall, Jason David (2007-09-01). "Popular Prosody: Spectacle and the Politics of Victorian Versification". Nineteenth-Century Literature. 62 (2): 222–249. doi:10.1525/ncl.2007.62.2.222. ISSN   0891-9356.
  3. 1 2 Rettberg, Scott (2019). Electronic literature. Cambridge, UK Medford, MA: Polity press. ISBN   978-1-5095-1677-3.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Bajohr, Hannes (2020). "Algorithmic Empathy: On Two Paradigms of Digital Generative Literature and the Need for a Critique of AI Works". Media Culture and Cultural Techniques Working Papers (4). doi:10.5451/UNIBAS-EP79106.
  5. ↑ Rettberg, Scott (2019). Electronic literature. Cambridge, UK Medford, MA: Polity press. ISBN   978-1-5095-1677-3.
  6. ↑ Ryan, James (2017), Nunes, Nuno; Oakley, Ian; Nisi, Valentina (eds.), "Grimes' Fairy Tales: A 1960s Story Generator", Interactive Storytelling, vol. 10690, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 89–103, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-71027-3_8, ISBN   978-3-319-71026-6 , retrieved 2023-08-01
  7. ↑ Sharples, Mike; Pérez y Pérez, Rafael (2022). Story machines: how computers have become creative writers. London New York: Routledge. ISBN   978-1-003-16143-1.
  8. ↑ Baillehache, Jonathan (2013). "Chance Operations and Randomizers in Avant-garde and Electronic Poetry: Tying Media to Language". Textual Cultures. 8 (1): 38–56. doi: 10.14434/TCv8i1.5049 . ISSN   1933-7418.
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