Twenty Years of Arts Computing
CHArt Twentieth Annual Conference
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FUTURES PAST: Twenty Years of Arts Computing |
Wayne Clements, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, UK
Computer Poetry's Neglected Debut
This paper is a study of an early computer poetry installation, Computerized Haiku, and its recent recreation online by the author of this paper. The author is a final year Research student at Chelsea College of Art and Design and will set Computerized Haiku in the context of his research into the role of instructions in art.
Computerized Haiku was originally shown in what was probably the first major exhibition of computer art, Cybernetic Serendipity, at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London in 1968. The remade Computerized Haiku can be found at http://www.in-vacua.com/cgi-bin/haiku.pl (or via the index page at www.in-vacua.com).
Computerized Haiku, programmed by Margaret Masterman and Robert McKinnon Wood, avoided batch programming and, using the text processing language TRAC, enabled users to create their own poems. A comparison will be made between the Masterman/McKinnon Wood program and other examples of computerised literature. Computerized Haiku employed a template and a structured thesaurus (a series of lists of words to choose from and insert into the Template). This paper suggests that much programming of computerised text has continued to follow this basic approach.
PERL scripting language has been employed to recreate the work as faithfully as possible. There are however, some interesting differences. There is a second program available (at the above addresses) that makes ‘random haiku’. This was an idea Masterman mentioned but appears not to have followed-up.
The online versions of Computerized Haiku are based upon Masterman’s essay in: Masterman, M. (1971) “Computerized Haiku”, in Reichardt, J. (Ed.) Cybernetics, Art and Ideas, London, Studio Vista, 175-184. This essay contains none of the original programming, so the author has been dependent on written descriptions. Masterman was interested in the reactions of users in a gallery setting. This has been acknowledged in the remade Computerized Haiku by adding a ‘visitor archive’. The difficulties and the differences that arise in trying to remake on the Internet a classic, but rather forgotten, work will be discussed and a live demonstration of Computerized Haiku given.