Detour, Digress, Destroy (on random walks): Demoing a Platform for Text Manipulation

Abstract

Abstract

Detour, Digress, Destroy (on random walks)^1: Demoing a Platform for Text Manipulation Literary works authored with some recourse to algorithm are especially ripe for computational recreation and expansion. Authors affiliated with, or working under the influence of, the mostly French Oulipo group or the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets of North America, use algorithmic routines to create or alter existing literary works, inventing new forms or concepts within the texts that embody them. This talk will present ongoing work to build an interactive literary platform for applying selected statistical transformations to selected texts. These transformations will range from relatively simple (or deceptively simple) “mechanical” routines, such as the selective transfer of words used by Jackson Mac Low to fill his own poem “Call Me Ishmael” with words from Moby-Dick^2, to more complex textual re-configurations using the increasingly sophisticated natural language models (word vector relationships, but not AI) that may transform us in turn. The Oulipian “N+7 Machine” which replaces nouns with the entry seven spots farther on in the dictionary can be recreated alongside more subtle détournements using algorithmically generated word embeddings to subtly tune texts in particular ways. (What if Jane Austen’s texts were rendered in words, say, 30% angrier?) The ability to tune a text in subtle or drastic ways can estrange language and defamiliarize texts. What’s more, beyond offering the chance to create works of startling newness, a platform to perform repeatable, experimental assays on literary texts within the web browser, is also an instructive opportunity to illustrate the methodological operations being performed, highlighting the inner workings of the algorithms in play. 1. In the spirit of Tristan Tzara’s Dada Manifesto 1918: “Always destroy what you have in you. On random walks. Then you will be able to understand many things.” 2. See Brian McHale’s discussion in “Poetry as Prosthesis,” Poetics Today Spring 2000 (21:1).