Thought
Generator
by H-Ray Heine
DIGITALSOULS.COM
San Francisco, California
1.
Randomized Control -- The Concept
A website that
produces poetry as its output – that was the initial idea of Though Generator
when I first developed the concept of the project in the fall of 1997. Essentially, Thought Generator was to be a
website that would function as a kind of online poetry machine, producing new
and different content each time it is visited online. Thought Generator was to be a website, interactive, and a work of
art.
At the time,
however, few people even knew what a website was, let alone how to create one,
and to suggest that websites as such could develop into a new genre of art was
definitely not part of the mainstream cultural spectrum.
Randomly generated
poetry and art on the other hand, already existed in numerous shapes and forms.
Tinguely's Drawing Machines, Surrealist
Automatic Writing Excercises, and popular culture Refrigerator Magnets with
printed words on them that can be arranged into suprizing and entertaining
little lines of text that quite often resembles poetry, are examples of randomly
generated artistic expressions.
Still, taken
this element of popular culture and turning it into a functioning website,
was a task filled with considerable obstacles.
Thought Generator as a project took shape at the beginning of 1998, when
I discovered a cgi script developed by Matthew M. Wright (http://www.worldwidemart.com/scripts/)that
allowed the display of randomly selected images or html pages.
2.
An Online Koan Machine - Thought Generator Version 1.0
The first
version of Thought Generator was modelled after the form of a Japanese Haiku
poem which had the advantage of a simple five line structure and a very open
range of options in terms of its syntax and semantic content.
Using a
combination of five variants of Matt Wright's script as its engine, the piece
combined words from 5 seed word groups into simple sentences. The output ranged from non-sensical,
neo-surrealist phrases to apparently quite meaningful and often astonishingly
philosophical sentences. Of course, the
selection of seed words was a key factor in making this approach work, and it
took considerable time and effort to develop suitable selections of seed words.
Observing and
testing the programs output, it became apparent that the resulting sentences
resembled Zen Koans much more than the initially intended Haiku poems, and the
design of the site was adjusted accordingly.
The phrase "This has happened 57684 times:" was added to
preceede the programs output A simple
counter script updated the fictitious number of occurrences each time the
scripts were called.
Though Generator Version 1.0
Despite its
technical limitations and its rather Spartan interface, Thought Generator v.1.0
proved to be a very functional and effective work. Even though it became clear after repeated use that there were
only a limited number of seed words involved, the program nevertheless produces
enough variations to keep its audience interested and entertained.
3.
Digital Poetry Flash - Thought Generator Version 2.3
The success of
Thought Generator v.1.0 and the numerous emails that I received in response to
the work prompted a further development of the media installation. By now, Macromedia's Flash 4 was available
as a development platform and offered a host of new programming options
suitable for online presentations.
The installation
was re-developed from scratch, and version 2.3 was presented on the occasion of
ArtSpan's 2000 San Francisco Open Studios Selection Show at Vitra Gallery, San
Francisco. The work still contains the
main features developed in the earlier version, in particular the structure of
selecting words from five seed lists, but it allows for different modes of
presentation as well as four different types of statements that are generated
from the original set of seed words:
Thought, Poem, Advice, and Condition.
·
Thought
presents a single sentence composed of five parts and most resembles the
original version of Thought Generator.
·
Poem
presents a four line phrase in a poetic style.
The random word selection omits the verbs altogether, and the resulting
phrases are eliptical but evocative at the same time.
·
Advice
produces just that, a three phrase combination that encourages different
actions, attitudes or behaviours.
·
Condition
renders a conditional sentence composed of random selections from the seed word
lists.
The interface
further features added audio tracks that were produced in collaboration with
Laser and Audio Construction artist U.Do Hanten and which allow the media work
to function as a kind of interactive audio instrument. The audio files are triggered in two ways. First, by the mode selection, i.e., the
users request for another sentence, poem, advice or condition, and secondly,
through rollover buttons embedded in the works interface.
Thought Generator v.2.3 - Advice Mode
As a media work,
Thought Generator is unlikely to repeat itself. Each user is confronted with new and different output each time
the piece is accessed. In other words,
the media work produces a different composition from the same seed elements,
each time it runs.
As a corrolary
to the work, I developed a number of digital prints that use imagery taken from
the media work's interface and which include transcripts of the program's
output. Due to the uniqueness of the
output, each work constitutes a unique document.
Thought Generator - 2 digital prints 22" x 29" each
Thought Generator
v.2.3 received considerable attention. It was reviewed by Sergei Teterin for the Russian Artzine artinfo.ru,
by Parvenue Magazine, UK based now.com, and the Italian version of the European
online magazine E-Loft. In 2001, it
was included in the juried group show “Casting A Net” at the McLean Center
for the Arts, McLean, Virginia.
As a media work,
I like to describe it as a digital tarot deck or interactive Rorschach
test. The works output is entertaining
and -- pun intended -- thought provoking.
Thought Generator
Version 2.3 is available online at: http://digitalsoulscom/2000/tg20
Interactivity
Revisited – Designing Thought Generator Version 3.0
In developing
the media work, it has always been my aim to involve the user as much as
possible, to make him or her a collaborator in the production and experience of
art. The next and final version of the
work is envisioned with the following five additions:
It will allow
users to add their own words to the seed lists.
It will allow
users to save output sentences and collect a selection of sentences.
It will allow
users to select audio and image files to combine with their selection.
It will allow
users to present their selection of sentences, images, and audio tracks online.
It will feature
an online gallery in which user selections are on display
As an
interactive media work, Thought Generator v.3.0 will be interactive, involve
visitors in the production of individual and unique media collages, and it will
be available online to a global audience.