Blog 1: Taroko Gorge

Christine

Before we begin, I would like to say that this type of reading is not my strong suit. What others may be able to comprehend, I will get stuck on or take a completely different route. After trying my best to read and absorb the knowledge from the first two chapters of Rettberg’s book, Electronic Literature, I began to see some connections between the book and Nick Montfort’s Taroko Gorge. As you may have noticed, the poem is very long and written with sentences that are honestly are worded in such a way that it makes my brain have to take five over and over again. So for my first “reading” of it I just observed its structure. The poem has this pattern where first it writes 2-3 lines that are describing something (such as a river or a forest). Then the poem inputs a space and writes something I would like to call an “action line”, a line that tells the reader that something is going on by using words such as “stamp”, “translate” and “enter” at the beginning of the sentence. We can see these traits in Stuart Mouthlrop’s poem Mock Tin Front. I believe both of these works were authored in a simple and interchangeable way. In Montfort’s, the author is having the reader create a forest. This is done by repetition of keywords such as “stone(s)”, “cove”, “rippling”, “monkeys”, etc as the text itself flows up the page as if it was a continuous flow of water. We see the same flow in Mouthlrop’s poem only this time the poem isn’t describing a forest. We see words such as ” instantiate”, “circuit boards”, “engines”, and “generate” as the text disappears at the top of the page. While the text still has that same flow the reader reads the poem a bit differently because of those keywords. Reading it over our mental depiction of the last poem’s forest slowly transforms into some sort of a machine. These transformations causes the reader to go from feeling calmed and relax to a more alert state of mind. With this in mind I believe these poems were both created in a similar fashion given the information that we have here. The poems were designed in the simplest way to loop but with a variation based on a set of keywords and a format that was determined by the author.

Taroko Gorge and Combinatory Poetry

0alloldusers

The concepts and ideas behind combinatory writing provide insight as to how poetry can be manipulated and enhanced through technology. Nick Montfort developed his poetry generator Taroko Gorge in the programming language Python, later converting the project to HTML, CSS and Javascript which not only made his work both easily accessible for web users, but also simple to hack and manipulate for other poets to engage with poetry through this medium. The open-source characteristics of Taroko Gorge allows for anybody to express their ideas through the medium of front-end web technologies and to expand the possibilities of what poetry can be by co-creating with the computer itself.

While analyzing some of the notable renditions of Taroko Gorge, it can be noticed that an infinite amount of ideas can be expressed through the generator by making simple adjustments to the source code. John Pat McNamara’s rendition, Take Ogre incorporates a background image on the webpage as a personal artistic decision to provide context for his work. The image of a desk and the impeding darkness of the night help articulate that he created his remix while isolated on Archill Sound, Ireland. Chuck Rybak’s remix, Tacoma Grunge explores themes of the Seattle Grunge scene while maintaining a minimalist aesthetic.

Each remix of Taroko Gorge is created by manipulating the keywords that lie within the Javascript variables, where the use of arrays organize the text. Due to the structure of the code that Montfort created, all of the numerous renditions of Taroko Gorge follow the same poetic structure, creating a sort of communal feel between each rendition.

While the work of Montfort certainly creates new possibilities for poetry and literature, it also has roots in the traditional ideas of  Surrealism. As stated by Rettberg:

“Surrealist writers and artists were just as likely to write together, and to freely mix image and text, as they were to write alone or in one medium” (Rettberg 25).

Combinatory writing and the work of Mantfort is not only a new and exciting form of literature, but is also a homage to traditional forms of art and poetry.

 

 

 

 

Blog 1 – 1/17/19

0alloldusers

Nick Monfort’s poem, Taroko Gorge is a reproductive poem about the Taroko Gorge National Park. The words scroll down infinitely, originating from a simple nature poem. On the surface, it is a countrified description of boundless landscapes in a variety of variations and length, yet confined like a river’s gorge by its short sentences.

The poem’s simplicity is reflected in its JavaScript code that is less than one thousand words. Each line of the poem that is generated from a small collection of adjectives. Another thing I noticed when researching this poem is that Nick Montfort allows the modification of his poetry generator by users or readers, provided the users give an original copyright notification.

Scott Rettberg’s Electronic Literature reflects on new forms and types of writing that manipulate the abilities of computers and networks such as works that would not be possible without the modern digital framework. Electronic Literature by Scott Rettberg is a vital book for students and researchers studying literary concepts.

Rettberg puts the most significant categories of E-literature in a cultural, technological, and historical context. Some of the categories in this book talk about digital, hypertext, and interactive fiction. Rettberg argues that E-literature needs to be read through the view of the specifics of the technology used to produce the work. This book offers a fundamental introduction to a vast field that both reacts to innovative literature and traditions of art that generate various new forms of stories and poetry that are specific to the modern era.

The Potential of Combinatory Writing

kzoller

January 16

Entry 1

This week, I encountered an intriguing work called Taroko Gorge by Nick Montfort. Utilizing JavaScript, HTML and CSS, the author was able to create a generative poem that displays random keywords in a poem-like structure. Inspired by his trip to Taroko Gorge, Montfort uses keywords such as relax, dream, mist, cavern, vein, stone, forest, crag, and other terms related to nature and calm emotions. The work stands out to me because it has passed through many writer’s hands overtime. There are numerous variations of this work—all a writer needs to do is swap out the keywords for their own.

One variation I found was Pigeon Forge “Action Packed” by Zach Whalen. Though it was structured like Taroko Gorge (a stanza of four lines followed by a single line), the interface was almost reminiscent of a postcard, and I was reminded of road trips across the northwest. The keywords also reinforced this idea, which included asphalt, drive, moccasins and trail. The source code of this work is largely the same as Montfort’s, except that it utilizes different keywords to present a different theme to the reader. Toy Garbage is another variation, and reminds one of a children’s room. The background looks like the wall of a nursery, and keywords such as slinky, crawl, and play with are used.

As a reader of these renditions, I discovered the same effects across the combinatory readings. As more of the text was presented to me, I attributed meaning to those words and their connections with each other. They presented me with unique ideas that I had never considered before. As a result, I would argue that combinatory writing can produce inventive concepts that readers and authors may have otherwise never conceived of. As postmodernist author William Burroughs once wrote:

“The best writing seems to be done almost by accident… you cannot will spontaneity, but you can introduce the unpredictable spontaneous factor with a pair of scissors.” (Burroughs qtd. in Rettberg 2019, p. 26)

Though in this case, instead of using scissors to cut words from newspapers we would be utilizing computers as the “unpredictable spontaneous factor” that generates texts. Despite the author’s influence in the process (e.g. selecting keywords for the machine), what happens afterwards is completely left to chance. Though some may argue that random generators cannot create great works of literature (and indeed, even computers today can’t produce anything that comes close), I believe that it gives authors the potential to write something great for readers to experience. Oftentimes, an author’s best ideas come from the least expected sources of inspiration, enabling them to create memorable and strikingly original concepts. It is very possible that I will be applying random text generators to my final project, as the coding does not seem overly complicated and the results can be quite intriguing.

Sources:

Taroko Gorge: https://nickm.com/taroko_gorge/

Pigeon Forge “Action Packed”: http://collection.eliterature.org/3/works/pigeon-forge/pigeon-forge.html

Toy Garbage: http://collection.eliterature.org/3/works/toy-garbage/toy-garbage.html

Electronic Literature by Scott Rettberg

Taroko Gorge

Mariah Gwin

As with all works of Electronic Literature, these variations or versions of Nick Montfort’s “Taroko Gorge” are born digital. Through the use of javascript, each version including the original implement if/else conditionals, variables and arrays with a variety of words to alternate the contents of the poem as lines appear.

Given Montfort’s note within the code granting permission for the copying, modification and redistribution of the software, as well as the number of other known E-Lit authors including Talan Memmott, Scott Rettberg, and Judy Malloy, among others, brings one to draw the conclusion that perhaps this also played into a sort of collaboration among the Electronic Literature community or an experiment of sorts.

Each text provides a different meaning based on not only the subject or focus of the version, but also the words that appear as they appear, creating an almost individualized experience that changes each and every time it is read. It is poetry so the meaning is up to individual interpretation. For instance, J.R. Carpenter’s “Whisper Wire” follows a similar pattern to Montfort’s “Taroko Gorge” but instead focuses on electricity and sound and how noise travels.

Andrew Plotkin’s “Argot Ogre, OK!” takes one of the other remixed versions and shows simultaneously the work’s process along the right side of the browser while also showing the actions the background code is taking with the conditionals along the left side.

As Plotkin phrases it, the process he implements is,

Combining the word-lists of any two poems;

Mutating the stanza schema.

In this version of the work, he shows the effect of the conditionals in numerous ways but places more emphasis on what lays beneath. As if exposing the skeleton instead of looking at the surface of a person’s skin.

 

Sources:
https://nickm.com/taroko_gorge/
https://nickm.com/taroko_gorge/whisper_wire/
https://nickm.com/taroko_gorge/along_the_briny_beach/
https://nickm.com/taroko_gorge/argot_ogre_ok/

Language Arts and Combinatory Poetics

0alloldusers

I think these works were authored by taking an original poetic work and then creating a code/program/etc. of some sort that selects certain keywords that can be replaced, and then allows for artists to input their own chosen keywords to completely alter the original poetic work. I take the meaning of these texts to be quite literally a way to take a poetic structure and alter it by having different artists/authors input several keywords which then have the ability to change the meaning and adverse effect of the poem as a whole. The different versions of Taroko George prove to be a way for artists to collaborate in a way that still allows for individual self expression. Combinatory poetics within these works allows the reader to distinguish their own interpretation of the various artist interpretations of the same work. This is especially proven by the fact that more recently, combinatory poetics have “tended toward simplicity” (Rettberg 41). The simplistic nature leaves interpretation up to the reader, rather than more complicated works, which can sometimes create a more direct explanation of the artists’ original thoughts for the work.

An Intro to Me

0alloldusers

Hey guys this is a test.

My name is Noelle Tadeo, I am a DTC major, and this is my second semester at WSUV. I previously received a degree in Paralegal in 2013, worked as a Paralegal for 4 years, decided it wasn’t for me, and am now coming back to school for my Bachelor’s. Yay for quarter life crises.

Introduction

Joel Clapp

I’m 28 years old, returning to school to study digital media.
I’ve been a radio DJ for nearly 5 years and like to dabble with audio and video editing. I like to make weird videos and weird art. I’m trying my hand now making weird games.