A2Z/Living Art: Final project proposal
I'm building a handheld generative poetry device.
My interest in this area lies in the observation that portable electronic devices have an interesting way of intervening in space: listening to an iPod, for example, can drastically transform the experience of walking down a city street. My question is: can text do the same thing?
In a sense, text already does this: you can read a book anywhere. I'm hoping that the generative nature of the text that my device creates will lead to a greater sense of serendipity and specificity to the particular moment: this juxtaposition of words and place is unique, and will never happen in quite the same way again.
Inspirations:
Buddha Machine
Transistor radios
Andreas Pavel's narrative concerning the invention of the portable cassette player:
"I was in the woods in St. Moritz, in the mountains," he recalled. "The snow was falling down. I pressed the button, and suddenly we were floating. It was an incredible feeling, to realize that I now had the means to multiply the aesthetic potential of any situation."
Jenny Holzer (especially her twitter feed)
Aram Saroyan's minimalist poetry
Nick Montfort's Implementation (photos)
Ketai Lit (see also)
Jackson Mac Low's PFR-3 Poems (Representative Works, p. 209)