Writing Machines–Protocols–Feedback
Image:David Bowie using the cut-up technique to write lyrics - from the documentary Cracked Actor(1975)
"Mankind is beginning to understand how to dismantle and reassemble the most complex and unpredictable of its machines: language."
Italo Calvino, Cybernetics and Ghosts (1967).
Alison Knowls' computer generated poem: "The House of Dust (1967) is not only a poem, it is in many ways also an interpretable score.", Maud Jacquin and Sébastien Pluot, House of Dust Journal (2019)
“If we find a monkey striking a typewriter apparently at random but in fact [it] is writing meaningful prose we shall look for restraints, either inside the monkey or inside the typewriter” Gregory Bateson, Cybernetic Explanation (1967).
Special Issue #28 Writing Machines–Protocols–Feedback
The project described here is a new iteration of a course first run in 2023 Radio Worm: Protocols for an Active Archive.
This iteration is called Writing Machines–Protocols–Feedback, and will run from September to December 2025.
The format will be a weekly live 2 hour radio program, and a “public moment” (tentatively planned for the end of November, 2025).
The course will be developed and run by tutors of XPUB, supported by WORM staff, and the content will be produced by XPUB1 students.
The idea is to produce and maintain a podcast feed of materials related to the program during the duration of the 3 months.
The format of the live event is described further below.
XPUB will be responsible for documenting activities related to the course, and in working with WORM for possible inclusion within their network (for instance working with Ash on materials that could be part of WORM’s Mixcloud channel).
Introduction to Special Issue #28
Image:William Burroughs using the Cut-up technique
Since human beings developed the software of the alphabet, they have engineered a series of technologies to manage and enhance its power. These include storage and operating systems such as books and libraries, along with more recent (computerised) systems of information collation and dissemination.
In the twentieth century, the realisation that writing is a technology – as opposed to a "natural", direct conduit to the soul – came as a creative inspiration to many writers and artists.
- the Surrealists fashioned "exquisite corpses";
- the 'Pataphysicians channeled streams of consciousness;
- the Oulipo group used systems of restraint to open new channels of potential literature;
- the Fluxus group developed protocols for "happenings";
- John Cage established restraints for composition;
- the Scratch Orchestra co-wrote scores for group improvisation.
- William Burroughs used various techniques, including "cut-ups", to scramble the patterns of language that he believed programmed conformity. Sometimes Burroughs used scissors, glue and paper, sometimes he collaged the (then) new media of magnetic tape.
This all sounds liberating, but in the twenty-first century we have reason to be critical of how easily the creative potential of the software of the alphabet can be commodified and pre-programmed. As knowledge transfers to ever-larger datasets, and drops into the hands of a minority who own them, we must ask again: what is our stake in the software of the alphabet?
Where is our agency when human expression through writing is understood as a code managed by a series of protocols?
What is at stake when a large dataset can claim the space of "creativity"?
Can we, through learning about how the past has been structured, shape information technologies that serve our own desires and interests?
The outcomes of Special Issue #28 will include:
- a series of radio shows
- writing machines (protocols, codes, Frankenstein devices) which structure the weekly radio shows
- a library of such protocols and techniques will generate scripts...
- to be performed (live) together...
- creating and remixing existing material...
- and using the scripts as improvisational prompts
The outline of the study path:
- Weeks 1-5: Alphabet as software
- Weeks 6-8: 20th century practice - 21st century context
- Weeks 9-12: Reading Ideology: Current Practices - Future Models
XPUB 2024-2026 Survival Guide
Pad of Pads
Wiki Page (same content, more permanent)
Themes
Alphabet is software; writing as situated, material practices; writing machines; protocol, feedback and improvisation; "the cybernetic explanation"; media ecologies.
Support
The project has received funding from [...]
Public moment
Weekly schedule
Monday from 10-11 a live radio program is produced by a rotating team of XPUB students together from the Radio WORM Studio.
From 11-12:00 time will be put aside to listen and reflect on the program.
In the afternoon
1) Steve opens with a mini-presentation which provides context and gives an overview of the texts and issues to be discussed that week; followed by
2) an open session, drawing on the texts we have read over the week; and lastly
3) building or designing a writing machine based on the things we have been talking about.
Tuesday = Prototyping with Manetta and/or Joseph [...] material which can feedback into the Monday Special Issue sessions and the Wednesday Methods sessions
Wednesday = Methods with Steve and/or Lidia [...] material that can feedback into the Monday Special Issue sessions and the Tuesday Prototyping sessions.
Weeks 0-4: Alphabet as software
WEEK 0
Monday * September
10 - 13: Meet at WORM
14-17: Afternoon session (in the Aquarium)
Image: Living Brain, Marvel Comics (1964). See also The Living Brain by cybernetician W. Grey Walters (Second edition, 1963)
14-15:Steve, introduction to the project
+ introduction to WritingMachines Reader
+ introduction to protocols
+ Adjective, Noun, Verb, adverb = making writing machines
15-16:Thematic: Why the alphabet is software.
Kenneth Goldsmith - Uncreative Writing, Managing Language in the Digital Age (2011)
Michael E. Hobart & Zachary S. Schiffman – Information Ages, Literacy, Numeracy and the Computer Revolution (2000)– Orality and The Problems of Memory (Establishes the idea of literacy as a technology; discusses the theory that the introduction of writing changed the mediation of memory, along with the storage and dissemination of information; literate societies produce networks of codes, machines and institutions [aka "discourse networks"])
Amaranth Borsuk – The Book (2018) – The Book as Object (allows for a broad and realistic definition of what a "book" is)
N. Katherine Hayles – Writing Machines (2002) – (introduces the concept of “technotext,”, which is “a literary work that reflects within itself the technological conditions of its composition and production.”
N. Katherine Hayles – Postprint (2021) – Introducing Postprint (discusses the concept of "cognitive assemblages", which is "the complex, distributed networks of humans, technology, and environments that collectively perform cognitive functions.")
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Montford – Output – an Anthology of Computer Generated Text 1953-2023 (2024) (some examples of humans and machines writing together within "cognitive assemblages")
Steve's notes on week 0
Special Issue 28 media and references for Monday sessions:
https://pad.xpub.nl/p/SI28WritingMachineMedia
16-17: making writing machines
Tuesday * September
Prototyping introduction, with Manetta & Joseph: setting up your sandbox
Notebook/wiki pages: Sandbox & HTML + CSS
OuNuPo (2019): https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/OuNuPo
Wednesday * September
Methods with Lidia and Steve
Methods of collective annotation; protocols
Check out Category:Protocol
Next Week's Reading, Watching and Listening
Reading
Brion Gysin – Cut-Up Self-Explained (1970)
William Burroughs – The Cut-Up Methods of Brion Gysin
Oliver Harris – Introduction to William Burroughs’ Nova Express (1964) (2013)
William Burroughs – The Electronic Revolution (c.1970)
History of Cut-Ups: https://austinkleon.com/2018/09/18/the-surprisingly-long-history-of-the-cut-up-technique/
Watching and listening
Reframed- The Most Important Writer You Don't Want to Read (comprehensive [but moralistic?] overview).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSxP4PZ2sf8
https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/Protocols-Feedback-WritingMachines
1963 Anthony Balch William Burroughs Towers Open Fire HD
https://archive.org/details/info_alibros_Info_201906
The spoken word. William S Burroughs and Brion GysinBrion
Gysin - Cut-ups self-explained -Brion Gysin
(43 mins in)
I am this painter -Brion Gysin
(47 mins in)
https://archive.org/details/youtube-dW0VQq94vO4
Brion Gysin–I Am 1960
https://archive.org/details/youtube-RnMKF5Zyc-0
The Cut Ups 1966
https://archive.org/details/youtube-Uq_hztHJCM4/The_Cut_Ups_1966_William_S._Burroughs-Uq_hztHJCM4.mkv
The Cut Up Films (1966?) – Time travel (2 mins in)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czTN5FNSpTU
Barry Miles on Burroughs in London (7.30)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhqShSodSF4
Barry Miles Autobiography of Burroughs (13 mins in= ‘question everything’)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4jCdcMHK10
Gavin Young – demystifying Borroughs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHx7soKPbQo
WEEK 1
Roles
- (Producer) / (Interface)
- (host)
- (host)
- (host)
Monday * September
- 10:00 - 11:00: Radio Broadcast #01 Those with assigned roles at Radio WORM Studio, the others at school (aquarium) to listen
- 11:15 - 13:00: Broadcast debrief / discussion
- 13:00 - 14:00: Lunch break
- 14:00 - 17:00: Afternoon session. Reading and discussing Goldsmith, Gysin, Burroughs, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Montford + building a writing machine (the Burroughs-Gysin-Calvino-Radical Software mix)
Tuesday * September
Prototyping, with Joseph and Manetta: Writing Coding Recording Machines
Wednesday * September
Methods with Lidia and Steve
Next Week's Reading
Alison Knowles – House of Dust (1967) – on line version– https://nickm.com/memslam/the_house_of_dust.html
https://archive.centerforthehumanities.org/james-gallery/exhibitions/house-of-dust
Maud Jacquin and Sébastien Pluot – House of Dust Journal (2019)
Joseph Weizenbaum – Eliza (1966)
Will Crowther and Don Woods – Adventure (1977)in:
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Montford – Output – an anthology of computer generated Text 1953-2023
WEEK 2
Roles
- (producer) / (interface)
- Host
- Host
- Host
Monday * September
- 10:00 - 11:00: Radio Broadcast #02 Those with assigned roles at Radio WORM Studio, the others at school (aquarium) to listen
- 11:15 - 13:00: Broadcast debrief / discussion
- 13:00 - 14:00: Lunch break
- 14:00 - 17:00: Afternoon session - Reading and discussing Alison Knowles – House of Dust (1967) – on line version– https://nickm.com/memslam/the_house_of_dust.html
https://archive.centerforthehumanities.org/james-gallery/exhibitions/house-of-dust
Maud Jacquin and Sébastien Pluot – House of Dust Journal (2019)
Joseph Weizenbaum – Eliza (1966)
Will Crowther and Don Woods – Adventure (1977)in:
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Montford – Output – an anthology of computer generated Text 1953-2023
Tuesday * October
Prototyping, with Manetta/ Joseph
Wednesday * October
Methods with Lidia and Steve
Next Week's Reading
OuliPo Group (Ouvroir de las Litterature Potentieelle) (1960s)
Harry Mathews – Liminal Poem to Martin Gardner
Michael Winkler – Where Signs Resemble Thoughts
Raymond Queneau – A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems (1961)
Raymond Queneau –A Story as You Like It (1967) (HTML approximation here: https://www.thing.de/projekte/7:9%23/queneau_9.html)
Paul Fournel – The Theatre Tree: A Combinatory Play
Marcel Benabou – Rule of Constraint (c. 1984)
Georges Perec – The Art of Asking your Boss for a Raise
WEEK 3
Image: Raymond Queneau’s A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems (diagram, 1961)
Reading and Writing Oulipo
"One must first admit that language may be treated as an object in itself, considered in its materiality, and thus freed from its subservience to its significatory obligation." – Marcel Benabou, Rule and Constraint
Roles
- Producer(s)
- Host
- Host
- Host
Monday * October
- 10:00 - 11:00: Radio Broadcast #03 Those with assigned roles at Radio WORM Studio, the others at school (aquarium) to listen
- 12:15 - 13:00: Broadcast debrief / discussion
- Pad
- 13:00 - 14:00: Lunch break
- 14:00 - 17:00: Afternoon session - Reading and discussing Oulipo + building writing machines (Oulipo mix) + brief intro to question: "what is media ecology?"
Tuesday * October
Prototyping, with Joseph/ Manetta
Wednesday * October
Methods with Lídia
Next Week's Reading
N. Katherine Hayles – Writing Machines (2002)
J.R.Meehan – Tale-Spin, an interactive program that writes stories (1977)
Ursula K. LeGuin – Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction (1986)
Ursula K. LeGuin – The Author of the Acacia Seeds (1974)
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Montford – Output – an Anthology of Computer Generated Text 1953-2023
Charlie Gere – Digital Culture (2002)– The Digital Avant Garde
WEEK 4
Roles
Producer(s)
Host
Host
Host
Monday * October
10:00 - 11:00: Radio Broadcast #04 Those with assigned roles at Radio WORM Studio, the others at school (aquarium) to listen
12:15 - 13:00: Broadcast debrief / discussion
13:00 - 14:00: Lunch break
14:00 - 17:00: Reading and discussing: N. Katherine Hayles – Writing Machines (2002)
J.R.Meehan – Tale-Spin, an interactive program that writes stories (1977)
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Montford – Output – an Anthology of Computer Generated Text 1953-2023
Ursula K. LeGuin – Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction (1986)
Ursula K. LeGuin – The Author of the Acacia Seeds (1974)
Charlie Gere – Digital Culture (2002)– The Digital Avant Garde
Next Week's reading and watching
Jennette Winterton – AI, Alternative Intelligence (2025)
https://www.ted.com/talks/jeanette_winterson_is_humanity_smart_enough_to_survive_itself/transcript
Open AI – A Machine-Shaped Hand (2025)
Marta Perano & Kate Crawford –in (re)programming Strategies for Self-Renewal (2024) – better machines for better humans
Kate Crawford –Atlas of AI (2021) – Labour
N. Katherine Hayles – Bacteria to AI- Human Futures with our Nonhuman Symbionts (2025) – Microsoft's Report on GTP-4 (p168-179)
Pamela McCorduck: Machines Who Think: A Personal Inquiry into the History and Prospects of Artificial Intelligence (2004)– Timeline: The Mechanisation of Thinking; Time Line: The Evolution of Intelligence.
WEEK 5
Roles
- Producer(s)
- Host
- Host
- Host
Monday * October
- 10:00 - 11:00: Radio Broadcast #04 Those with assigned roles at Radio WORM Studio, the others at school (aquarium) to listen
- 11:15 - 13:00: Broadcast debrief / discussion
- 13:00 - 14:00: Lunch break
- 14:00 - 17:00:Reading and discussing Jennette Winterton – AI, Alternative Intelligence (2025)
https://www.ted.com/talks/jeanette_winterson_is_humanity_smart_enough_to_survive_itself/transcript
Open AI – A Machine-Shaped Hand (2025)
Marta Perano & Kate Crawford –in (re)programming Strategies for Self-Renewal (2024) – better machines for better humans
Kate Crawford –Atlas of AI (2021) – Labour
Pamela McCorduck: Machines Who Think: A Personal Inquiry into the History and Prospects of Artificial Intelligence (2004)– Timeline: The Mechanisation of Thinking; Time Line: The Evolution of Intelligence.
N. Katherine Hayles – Bacteria to AI (2025) – Microsoft's Report on GTP-4 (p168-179)
Next week's reading:
Radical Software Issue 1, Feedback, 1970; Fred Turner, Shifting Politics of the Computational Metaphor; in From Counterculture to Cyberculture (2006)
Gregory Bateson, The Cybernetic Explanation (1967) Note Steve will give overview of this text on Monday afternoon session (what is "media ecology"?);
Tuesday * October
Prototyping, with Manetta / Joseph
Wednesday * October
Methods with Lidia and Steve in the Aquarium
Weeks 6-8 – 20th century practice - 21st century context
Week 6
Image:From Radical Software (1970)
“Our communication network must be used as a tool of environmental education." – Phil Gietzen, Radical Software, Issue 1, 1970
Roles
Producer(s)
Host
Host
Host
Monday * October
10:00 - 11:00: Radio Broadcast #04 Those with assigned roles at Radio WORM Studio, the others at school (aquarium) to listen
12:15 - 13:00: Broadcast debrief / discussion
13:00 - 14:00: Lunch break
14:00-17:00 Discussing: Radical Software Issue 1, Feedback, 1970; Fred Turner, Shifting Politics of the Computational Metaphor; in From Counterculture to Cyberculture (2006)
Gregory Bateson, The Cybernetic Explanation (1967)
Next Week's Reading
John Markoff, What the Doremouse Said, How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry (2005);Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron The Californian Ideology (1995)https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology; John C. Lily, M.D. The Human Biocomputer (1974), extract; Dr. Gordon Pask & Susan Curran, Maverick Machines, from Microman, Computers and the Evolution of Consciousness (1982), extract
WEEK 7
Roles
- Producer(s)
- Host
- Host
- Host
Monday * October
- 10:00 - 11:00: Radio Broadcast #05 Those with assigned roles at Radio WORM Studio, the others at school (aquarium) to listen
- 12:30 - 13:00: Broadcast debrief / discussion
- 13:00 - 14:00: Lunch break
- 14:00 - 17:00: Afternoon session: discussing:Gregory Bateson, The Cybernetic Explanation (1967); John Markoff, What the Doremouse Said, How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry (2005);Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron The Californian Ideology (1995)https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideology; issue 2 (2002); John C. Lily, M.D. The Human Biocomputer (1974), extract; Dr. Gordon Pask & Susan Curran, Maverick Machines, from Microman, Computers and the Evolution of Consciousness (1982), extract
Tuesday * October
Prototyping, with Joseph/ Manetta
Wednesday * October
Methods with Lídia
====Next Week's Reading==== TBD
WEEK 8
FALL BREAK
Weeks 9-12: Reading Ideology: Current Practices - Future Models
WEEK 9
Roles
- Producer
- Host
- Host
- Host
Monday * November
- 10:00 - 11:00: Radio Broadcast Those with assigned roles at Radio WORM Studio, the others at school (aquarium) to listen
- 12:30 - 13:00: Broadcast debrief / discussion
- 13:00 - 14:00: Lunch break
- 14:00 - 17:00: Afternoon session TBD
Tuesday * November
Prototyping, with Manetta
Wednesday * November
Methods with Lídia
Next Week's Reading
Marloes de Valk, Soft Technology and Appropriate Technology (2025)
WEEK 10
Roles
- Producer(s)
- Host
- Host
- Host
Monday * November
- 10:00 - 12:00: Radio Broadcast Those with assigned roles at Radio WORM Studio, the others at school (aquarium) to listen
- 12:30 - 13:00: Broadcast debrief / discussion
- 13:00 - 14:00: Lunch break
- 14:00 - 17:00: Afternoon session: Marloes de Valk, Soft Technology and Appropriate Technology (2025)
Tuesday * November
Prototyping,* Joseph /Manetta
Wednesday * NOVERMBER
Methods with Lidia
Next Week's Reading
WEEK 11
prepare for final presentation
- 10:00 - 17:00: TBD
Tuesday * November
Prototyping, with Manetta /Joseph
Wednesday * November
Methods with Lídia
WEEK 12
prepare for final presentation
- 10:00 - 17:00: TBD
Monday 25 November
Tuesday * November
WEEK 12
https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/Week_11_Radio_Show_-_SE25_Event_ReMix%27d
Monday * December
prepare for final presentation
- 10:00 - 17:00: TBD
Tuesday * December
Prototyping, with Manetta
Wednesday * December
Methods with Lídia
WEEK 13
Final Broadcast Week - Launch final iteration of publication
Tuesday * December
Prototyping, with Manetta / Joseph
References from last year
From last year the Protocol Category, with specific Decision Making protocols such as All voices heard and Voting by show of hands
Specific attention to Licenses, Open licenses, and Open licenses session that was the basis of a zine.
Nature Study Notes, and Portland Pattern Repository ... parallels.
Exemplary webpages that document the history of a project while also creating a web-page based (re)performance tool:
- BBC Radiophonic workshop + Delia Derbyshire
- MOD/S3M/XM Module Player for Web Audio and code chiptune2.js
- Some Assembly Required
- Radio Aporee
- Janek Schaefer: Custom players, his soundartresources
- Generative Music (players) Throbbing Gristle / Buddha Machine? Pirate Radio History [Media Fragments]* (https://www.w3.org/TR/media-frags/ The Deep, Rivers Solomon + Clipping (Hybrid Pub)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deep_(novella)
- Platoniq Burnstation
- Distributed Proofreaders and the podcast recording -- interview with An?
- Botopera
Licenses
Laurence Rassel Show http://www.ultrared.org/publicrecord/archive/2-01/2-01-014/2-01-014.html
Partners
XPUB is the 2 years Master program in Experimental Publishing at the Willem de Kooning Academy, part of the Hogeschool Rotterdam (http://xpub.nl). XPUB focuses on the acts of making things public and creating publics in the age of post-digital networks.
Radio WORM (https://radio.worm.org) is an online radio platform at the heart of WORM Rotterdam. Their studio hosts audio production of all descriptions (sound art, experimental music, interviews, mixes, informal reporting and in-depth talk-based series), with over 80 resident shows as well as a shifting schedule of one-off events, mini-series and special guests.
WORM Pirate Bay (http://thepiratebay.worm.org/) is a physical archive and working facility at WORM comprising DVDs, VHS tapes, zines, books, CDs, board games and other remnants from WORM’s production history. WPB is about unconventional knowledge sharing and artistic production that might not be valued by traditional understandings of high art.
The project will involve the assistance and cooperation of: Ash Kilmartin, Lukas Simonis, Lieuwe Zelle (Radio WORM), Ari Ralph (Worm Pirate Bay), and Florian Cramer, Michael Murtaugh (WDKA/XPUB), and XPUB prototyping + methods tutors.
PUBLIC EVENT
Public event at WORM (TBC)
documentation (template)
PLEASE use the following template in a Wiki page about your project for the Special Issue 25 event.
==Title of the project==
==Short description== (the one asked by PR)
==Cookbook== (how, steps of the making) with pictures
==Refs and resources== (external links)
==Additional info== (optional)
==Event Rider==
===Items===
- Item [ ]
===Space===
- X x Xm
- Internet/Power/etc
===Time===
- Async/ 1 hour slot/etc
A NOTE FROM THE LOGISTICS TEAM:
Resources needed: on your wiki project page, let us know if you need power, lighting and internet for your installation. It would also be appreciated if you could provide a list of other equipment needed (example: table, lamps, chairs, etc…). Also leave a not if you have any equipment that is on the list.
Event timings: for the jam session and text-to-speech to text to music, think about a potential timing for your event. The rest of the artworks/ installations will be working throughout the entire event. You can also list down this info on the wiki project page.
Space requirements (floorplan): on Monday, we will discuss the floorpan together, but during the weekend- you can think about how much space you would need during the event.
Project pages:
! After the event: please add pictures of the finished piece in the space ! PAD: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/Protocols-Feedback-WritingMachinesPrototyp%26Methods