Distant Writing

How does a poet end up thinking in terms of algorithms, programming languages, and datasets? This talk explores the work of writers of electronic literature who, instead of writing sequences of words directly, create a computer program or modify an existing one to generate their intended texts. The practice of creating and repurposing “engines” encourage the development of born-digital poetic forms, such as Nick Montfort’s poem, “Taroko Gorge” which has been remixed hundreds of times since its publication in early 2009. In this talk I will provide a brief history of computational literature and related genres, discuss key characteristics and practices, analyze tools and strategies used for its creation, and identify communities that practice it. The goal of this exploration is to formulate a poetics of distant writing with attention given to how this practice is shaping public tastes and literary aesthetics.