Otherwriting.online
sort of an e-lit application, in the continuation of
scripting the other exhibition at the
wrong3.
the idea is to build up a text, or a sense of meaning, starting from random quantum foam.
another idea is to use html code recursively to build a website out of formless elements.
as you type or tap you engage with the thing and it will provide tidbits of information related to your input.
it gains on you through your effort. after some minutes or more, you
might be able to hold some sort of meaningful dialogue, though the thing
would probably always try to derail you.
if you keep on, it might drive you nuts in the end. the density of
meaning eventually tops it over, as the dramatic structure increase
scroll and output, a danger of loss of meaning occurs and only a uncanny
scroll of potential meaning remains, biting its tail, a sort of foam of
meaning which nontheless remains meaningless, remains unrealized,
uncollapsed. here there are some inversions you might figure out. is
meaning a collapsed thing or and uncollapsed potential? while the
quantum foam a sort of collapsed realized nonsense?
not being a concept of evolution proper, since the user interacts with the foam in a sort of divine intermission.
but from this interaction the foam starts to take shape, form
structures, words, sentences, meaning (though 'meaning' might be
embedded or projected into the foam just as well).
though not dealing with an ai here, the structuring out of foam, is
rather a bricolage thing hacked together - many and diverse approaches,
at hand or ad-hoc invented for the purpose of making someting
intriguing, something you, the user and participant, would like to see
running and might like to make use of in your own reading or writing
process.
in other words, it's about reading and writing, their entanglement, in a
process both nameless and disruptive, of self and other.
your input and output is entangled with the thing, if you look for
reflections you might glean together distorted elements into a self
writing, though it might be more useful to reflect on yourself as a
reader of your own interrupted processes of writing.
what you write are not only words but are also interpreted as commands
for the thing though the interface for this is invisible, a black box,
you won't know exactly what commands trigger what, though the code might
give some clues as to character, word, sentence classes of input.
it's a bricolage thing, messy coded on-the-go, meant as an ambivalent
interface to an other writing where you'd have to suspend some notions
of the reading-writing process.
it's most obvious predecessor is the
"plaintext performance" application (
e and eye, Tate Modern, London (
noemata copy);
@ BIOS symposium, West Virginia
University;
Electronic Literature Collection, Vol. 2).
thanks to
arts council norway
which has partly funded the other writing project including the
scripting the other exhibition; and to sandy baldwin for recommending it
to the council.