Writing-Machines/Poetry Generator

Poetry Generator is a writing machine that was displayed at Creative Coding Utrecht (CCU) during the Ground Exhibition. It is a continuation of Mud-cell Poem, that Youjung and Lea worked on during Sunjoo Lee's workshop Fermenting The Earth, Wiring The Mud at iMal in Brussels. Poetry Generator was developed during two follow up meetings at CCU as a collective project by Sunjoo Lee, Lea Binsfeld, Niels Gräber, Miky Kray, Youjung Noh, Raymundo Vásquez Ruiz and Guus Vandeweerd.

Protocol

People interacting with the Poetry Generator can choose different actions: WAIT, FERMENT, GAZE, HEAR or SNIFF. Based on the chosen action, a different python script is executed, that transforms short input phrases and poems to a different output. The generated poem is then printed by a recipe printer.

The GAZE script looks like this:

import random

ingredients = [
    "some from puddle, some from lake, some from river",
    "a tiny blink of light is what I can offer",
    "the poems of heaven and hell have been written.\nIt remains to write the poem of the earth",
    "in a geopoetic sense, to look is to participate\nTo let the world write itself through our attention",
    "MAGIC!!... \nThe Reconstruction Of Reality",
    "actually, this is how our brains work.\nEvery time you think of something, the crumbles come back to form the memory",
    "looking upwards, forwards, deep inside",
    "is relational",
    "Ode to the Squid,by people of the Cape Urbano (crazy people of the Outer Rohoji)",
    "Light. Light. Light. Shadow. Move Towards. Shadow. Move away. Light. Light. Light.",
    "how do we try to minimize human perspective?",
    "feeling of awe",
    "insects and plants, mountains and trees",
    "direction of moving and looking",
    "more noticeable than bacteria",
]

frame = {
    "small": {
        "pre": "From the eyes of the puddle",
        "post": ", looking up."
    },
    "average": {
        "pre": "From the eyes of the fox",
        "post": ", looking at you."
    },
    "big": {
        "pre": "From the eyes of the tree",
        "post": ", looking down."
    }
}

perspectives = ["small", "average", "big"]

def gaze():
    output = ""
    for item in perspectives:
        perspective = frame[item]
        line = perspective["pre"] + f" you see {item} " + random.choice(ingredients) + perspective["post"] + "\n"
        output += (line)
    return output

Output