Week 2: What is combinatory poetics? (Sydney)

     Combinatory poetics as a field is, once again, a concept which is difficult to define. Simply put, contemporary combinatory writing systems (which result in stories, poems, or other art projects), are characterized by their  "structured complexity and procedurality" (Rettberg). In other words, combinatory work uses algorithmic procedures to produce a new textual dataset, which the reader interprets as a poem, story, or other form of e-lit. Authors of combinatory works understand combinatory writing systems as systems that generate "complexity from simplicity" (Rettberg). A key thought in the discussion of combinatory poetics is the idea that the reader plays the most significant role in perceiving these texts as works of poetry or other art, rather than simply as data. There are many different kinds of combinatory poetry, such as 3D poetry, new poetry produced by AI and bots, or works which use text generators to rearrange data and create a new text. The field developed following changing 20th-century cultural ideals, such as the Dada movement and the surrealism movement. While the Dada movement welcomed the elements of chance and spontaneity into art production, the surrealism movement embraced the rejection of any preconceived notions of "perfect" aesthetics or reasoning. These ideals led to the creation of "variable media", which are texts that can exist in "different, potentially infinite versions"-- these media, of course, now being those of the e-lit genre (Rettberg). The culture which combinatory poetics arose from was marked by its push towards both "anti-art" and the more "procedural" approach towards making art.

    I decided to bring the combinatory work "Self Portrait(s) [as Other(s)]" by Talan Memmott to the table for this week. The program is a "recombinant portrait and biography generator" which "recombines the self-portraits of a dozen well-known painters as well as a biographical text on each" (eliterature.org). The generated portraits are new artifacts which were produced from the a subset of portraits of famous painters, and there are over 120 million possible recombinations. The subsequent biographies of each famous painter are parodied biographies, and I discovered that some are more absurdist than others. I experimented with this platform by flipping through many generations of new pictures, and it reminded me of McLuhan's theory that "the medium is the message." Each new photo would not only literally not be possible without digital technology, but would also be interpreted differently within another medium, as well. Additionally, I think it could be possible for a user to take the biographies seriously if they didn't know the context behind the project, as some of the captions are absurd but still believable. In fact, I think this project is a good example of the idea that the meaning behind many e-lit projects is that of what the user interprets it to be. Sticking with McLuhan's theory that "the message will change depending on what medium is used to represent one's manifestation of thought," I wonder how the satirical nature of this project might be communicated if it wasn't digital. The randomness of the photo generator seemed to contribute to the project's meaning, as well, and I think it's an interesting start to delving into the world of combinatory poetics.

https://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/memmott__self_portraits_as_others.html