As an English major, I am someone who does not have what some may call a “math brain.” I don’t like the idea of computers being able to write poetry (or prose, for that matter) and I don’t believe that they can do it better than humans can. More efficiently? Yes. Sometimes convincingly? Yes. But still, I believe that there’s something to be said for humans’ capability to think and to feel. Computers can think, sure, but only because humans have programmed them to. The poems by computers that Rettberg includes are “clearly not great literature,” scholars admit that, but I wonder then - what is the point of programming computers to perform such tasks if they are meaningless? (32)
Of course, Rettberg explains how these programs are simply gateways to greater tasks such as composing and playing music and conjugating verbs. But still, I question the authority of technology to create art.
Andre Breton, a French writer and poet, comments on the complexity of art and humans role in creating it:
“It is true of Surrealist images as it is of opium images that man does not evoke them; rather they ‘come to him spontaneously, despotically. He cannot chase them away; for the will is powerless now and no longer controls the faculties.’” (p. 36) - Breton (24)
This concept from Breton is an interesting and thought-provoking one to any artist. When most artists are asked about the meaning behind their work, they claim that they were “inspired,” that the work which they’ve created came from another level of consciousness outside of their own. In my fiction writing class, we often talk about how ideas are just grasped from somewhere in space. They are created out of nothing. That is what Breton is getting at in this idea of surrealism. I find the concept of the power of art and its ability to “appear” to artists in order to gain physical form to be extremely interesting and somewhat remarkable. I wonder, though, if art is a being of its own, does it have less merit if it is generated from a computer rather than a person? If art is not evoked by man, is a Dada poem created by a computer just as creative and original as a piece composed by a famous poet? My initial reaction is “No,” but given the reasoning behind Breton’s claim about surrealism, I may have to reconsider.
Lily
You bring up some really great questions! My first reaction was to also say that if something comes from a machine, it is not art. Using a program to write poetry does sound like cheating or taking the easy way, since you don't have to do much of the work. I realized this when making a poem through the Cent Mille Milliards de Poems, especially since you didn't even have to put words together to make lines, they were already made for you. However, I do think combinatory poetics is very fitting for digital literature because of how it is rebellious and it rejects traditional ideas surrounding writing and art. It's like making a collage out of a magazine, you may not have created the pictures, but you still used creativity to arrange them to convey a specific message.
ReplyDeleteI totally get what you are saying by having a math brain, I agree it is a weird concept of computers writing poems. To me, I think being a writer a lot of people think you have an open mind and can come up with many creative ideas. That being said, maybe the idea of having this poem generator could help inspire writers rather than the computer fully take over. Plus, opening up to a new style of writing to make a writers task easier always sounds fulfilling to me. I also agree with what you are saying about Dada poem being created by computer rather than man and having surrealism coming into play. I think being open to this form of writing is what makes writers so accepting and gives them the rep of being optimistic and creative becaue often times they are open to new and intriguing ideas.
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