{"id":220,"date":"2021-04-28T13:55:56","date_gmt":"2021-04-28T12:55:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/?p=220"},"modified":"2021-04-28T15:11:21","modified_gmt":"2021-04-28T14:11:21","slug":"the-surrealist-portfolio-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/2021\/04\/28\/the-surrealist-portfolio-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"The Surrealist Portfolio – Machine Poem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Enquiry into the nature of a chance machine<\/strong>
\nby Joshua Carter<\/strong><\/p>\n

A sonnet written by a machine<\/em>
\nwill be better appreciated by another machine.<\/em>
\nAlan Turing<\/p>\n

And there you are\u2014an infinitely original author of charming sensibility,<\/em>
\neven though unappreciated by the vulgar herd.<\/em>
\nTristan Tzara<\/p>\n

As part of my creative portfolio I wrote a short programme that automated the creation of a Dada poem, as described by Tristan Tzara. I don\u2019t know if it can be considered \u201csurrealist\u201d, however if it isn\u2019t, I think that a brief autopsy of this project will help explore the boundaries of surrealism, and whether it will remain a viable philosophy as we move into the future.
\nTzara\u2019s original formula can be summarised as the subjection of a pre-written text to the laws of chance, stripping it of its original meaning, and giving it the potential for new ones. This is the core of what I wanted to recreate with my program.
\nHere is an example of how it works:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve chosen an old diary entry from the 2nd February 2017, and faithfully copied it into the top textbox. It was clearly something meaningful to me at the time, although now I can\u2019t quite remember the context; I figured that if there is any inherent meaning baked into these words, the laws of chance might bring them out again.
\nThe text has been jumbled and output into the bottom textbox: my \u201cpoem\u201d.
\nThe new text has obtained a new sense of pacing and mood from the irregularly placed periods, while the erratic capitalisation implies objects and nouns imply new ambiguous significance. Besides the nonsense grammar that a Dadaist would revel in, there are also some juxtapositions that allow the reader\u2019s unconscious to make new connections, and lots more potential for use with other texts.
\nThat being said, I think there is something missing compared to Tzara\u2019s formulation. Pulling the words out of a hat lends Tzara\u2019s process the connotation of magic and creates a mysterious tension that is completely lost with my program that works at the push of a button. The instant randomisation, the fact you can no longer touch the words, and the possibility of infinite repetition all give the program a distasteful and inhuman quality. This is not Breton\u2019s objective chance, guided by the unconscious association of the mind, but real<\/em> randomness rooted in mathematics and logic.
\nThe mathematical objects of the Poincar\u00e9 Institute were a source of inspiration for many surrealists including Max Ernst and Man Ray. What appealed to them were the organic and anthropomorphic forms that had derived from algebraic formulas, representing the move away from logic and towards the subjective realm of the unconscious.
\nRay captured the appeal of the objects when he said that \u201cthe formulas accompanying them meant nothing to me but the forms themselves were as varied and authentic as any in nature\u201d (Hoving). What interests me however, is how he misses the fact that all<\/em> of the forms of nature are built on mathematics.
\nThe machinations of the city were a constant source of daydreams and mythologies for the surrealists who couldn\u2019t conceive of the massive web of connections that sprawled out in front of them. This meant that when a chance encounter presented a glimpse of order, it was intensely profound.
\nThe randomness that produces my poem, however, can be presented in full:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If the schematics of our universe were presented to us like this, would the chance encounter lose its magic? What about the creation of art?
\nWith a few lines of code you can create an infinite number of original poems, and as technology and AI advance they will continue to problematise the surrealist\u2019s anthropocentric privileging of the unconscious, reproducing without fanfare the accomplishments of the human imagination.
\nAs the schematics underlying poetry and painting continue to be demystified, we will have a choice to make: either to pay attention, or to close our eyes and preserve the magic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Enquiry into the nature of a chance machine by Joshua Carter A sonnet written by a machine will be better appreciated by another machine. Alan … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73455,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73455"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions\/256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/artistry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}