LCC 2700: Intro to Computational Media The Oulipo LCC 2700: Intro to Computational Media

Workshop for a Potential Literature What is potential literature? focus on constraints mathematics (graph, factorial, etc.) writing (lipogram, palindrome) Rules (constraints) for producing literary work

Language Constraints Natural language imposes constraints These constraints structure what we can say Not just semantics…

English vs. Latin Word order Again and again they beat the small boy. Grammatical case Iterum iterumque parvum puerum pellabant. Iterum iterumque pellabant puerum parvum. Parvum puerum iterum iterumque pellabant.

Grammatical Case English Nominative, Genitive (sorta) Latin Nominative Dative Accusative Ablative (Locative) (Vocative) Greek Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative (Locative) (Vocative) Russian Nominative Genitive Dative Accusative Instrumental Prepositional Quenya Nominative Genitive Dative Instrumental Possessive Locative Allative Ablative Respective Finnish Nominative Genitive Accusative Instrumental Essive Partitive Translative Inessive Ellative Illative Adessive Ablative Commitative

Fun with Finnish Weird stuff Translative case marks changes in state Pakoniksi ~= becoming bacon Excessive case marks changes out of a state Pakoninta ~= from being bacon No grammatical gender Not for nouns, as in Indo-European languages (le maison) Not for pronouns either! Hän = he/she

Grammatical Number English Singular Plural Latin Singular Plural Sanskrit Singular Plural Dual Quenya Singular Plural Dual Partitive Plural Finnish Singular Plural Think about how this structures our thinking… A pair of shoes Six of the eighteen tacos

Usage and Structure — a clearer example English The bad man killed the unfortunate child. Chinook The badness of the man killed the misfortune of the child.

Oulipo Language is embodied in logics Literary expression is enforced by constraints and structures Potential literature is the search for new forms and structures for writers of literature

Raymond Queneau 100,000,000,000,000 poems The lines can be turned independently of one another Each line maintains the rhyme, syntax, and meter (rules!) Compare to surrealist games: multiple authorings

Configuration Leibniz: combinatorics Arrangement of a finite number of objects The lines of a sonnet, for example The search for new structures:

Other Oulipian Experiments Replace every noun in a text with the word that falls 7 places ahead in the dictionary Palindrome, Lipogram La Disparition, Perec Prisoners Constraint A lipogram in ascenders and descenders (no b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, p, q, t, y)

Constrained Writing Weblogs From Jill Walker’s defn in the Routledge Encyc of Narrative Theory: “Some weblogs create a larger frame for the micro-narratives of individual posts by using a consistent rule to constrain their structure or themes” http://www.francisstrand.blogspot.com/ Sticker Novels Implementation is a novel about psychological warfare, American imperialism, sex, terror, identity, and the idea of place. The text is being written collaboratively by Nick Montfort and Scott Rettberg with some contributions from others. Its initial incarnation is as a serial novel printed on sheets of stickers that will be distributed in monthly installments beginning in January 2004. http://nickm.com/implementation/

Play Rules Constraints on behavior, representation, authorship, etc. Define a possibility space and what is possible and impossible within it Play Counter intuitively, the condition brought about by the imposition of rules (Salen & Zimmerman, Rules of Play) The Magic Circle Johan Huizinga, 20th c. Dutch anthropologist The imaginary space of play The Game Salen & Zimmerman adopt Huizinga’s magic circle to characterize the space of play, the place where the game takes place.

Surrealism An artistic movement of the early 20th century focusing on expressions of the unconscious mind, which was perceived to be more valid than the conscious one An outgrowth of Dada, conceived against that movement’s perceived negativism Sur-real, more than real, first used by André Breton 1917 André Breton, Surrealist Manifesto (1924) Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, or in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation

Surrealism Connected to the contemporaneous theories of unconscious of Sigmund Freud Automatic drawing Automatic painting Frottage, collage, grattage (paint scraping), frottage (rubbing), fumage (impressions from a candle or lamp) Key figures (painters, for the purposes of the slides)…

René Magritte

Joan Miró

Max Ernst

Salvador Dalí

Exquisite Corpse Write indefinite/definite article + adjective, fold Write noun, fold Write verb Write definite/indefinite article + adjective, fold Write noun (so named for the first sentence obtained by its method, “The equisite corpse shall drink the new wine”

Definitions (or Question and Answer) Write a question, fold Write an answer Example: What is absence? Calm, limpid water, a moving mirror

Opposites Write a sentence — question, or statement, pass to next player Write the absolute opposite of this sentence, phrase by phrase, according to any idea of “opposite.” Then fold the sheet to cover only the first sentence Continue like this as long as desired Example: When my mother swigs champagne My father’s corpse gets drunk on chianti Our mothers’ infants dry up tearlessly The moribund waters my fatherland

Exquisite Corpse (automatic drawing version) Form a small group Fold a sheet of paper into as many sections as there are members in your group The first player should draw something on the first segment, extending the drawing slightly onto the next. Then fold the first segment over and pass Continue until the paper is folded completely

One Into Another One player leaves the room and chooses an object (or person, idea, etc.). While he or she is absent, the rest of the players also choose an object. When the first player returns he is told what object the group has chosen. He must now describe his own object in terms of the properties of the object chosen by the others, making the comparison more and more obvious as he proceeds, until they are able to guess. The first player should begin by saying “I am an [object…]” Example: I am a hardened sunbeam that revolves around the sun so as to release a dark and fragrant rainfall each morning, a little after midday, and even once night has fallen. [answer: a coffee mill]

Paradigms of Programming Imperative Languages program state + statements: walk through the code line by line as instructions, with some branching C, Java, Etc. Declarative Langauges Conditions that describe a solution space rather than executing a set of instructions. Prolog, SQL Functional Langauges The evaluation of functions rather than the execution of instructions Lisp, Logo, Scheme Machine Languages Direct manipulation of registers at the processor-level Assembly