Description
For this assignment, you must select a digital poem or story generator to repurpose to fulfill your own artistic vision. The goals is to familiarize yourself with simple coding frameworks and reflect upon this kind of writing by producing a new work of generative literature or non-literary generative writing.
Alternatively, you may create your own text generator from scratch using HTML/JavaScript/CSS, whether you program it yourself or use Chat GPT to generate the necessary code. If you take this route, I expect you to make substantive contributions to the development of the work, and not to turn in something entirely generated.
Guidelines
Please select any of the previously assigned digital works to hack, or one of the recommended ones below:
- Leonardo Flores’ Generative Template by Leonardo Flores (recommended)
- Taroko Gorge by Nick Montfort
- The Two by Nick Montfort
- A House of Dust by Alison Knowles and James Tenney (reimplemented by Nick Montfort)
If you use Chat GPT to produce code for a new generative engine, include a link to the chat transcript that resulted in the code.
You will accompany your final work with a short essay (about 250 words) in which you discuss the work you’ve created and reflect on what you have learned about generative writing, referencing at least one of the sources assigned in class.
How to hack a digital work
- Open the work, linked to above in your browser, and save it as an HTML file in your computer (smartphones and tablets are not recommended for this).
- Open the saved file with a code or text editor (I recommend Visual Studio Code).
- Open the same saved file in a browser. Whenever you make changes to the original file, save it in the editor, and reload it in the browser to see the changes.
- Modify the code as you see fit, being careful not to break it by missing a comma, quotation mark, semicolon, etc. Take small steps in changing datasets.
- If the code breaks, copy the code and share it with Chat GPT (or AI of choice), asking what is the problem is and for it to correct it.
- If that doesn’t work, share your problem with me. Be sure to email me the code and to be descriptive about the problem.
- When you’re satisfied with the text the work is generating, give it a title, modify the aspects of the source code that display your title and name, modify the style sheet as you see fit (Chat GPT is good for this), and rename the file as something that is yours. You can write an artist’s statement in the source code documentation, if you like.
Deadlines
- A brief description of your work in progress is due on Monday, February 5.
- The final assignment is due on Monday, February 19.
Assessment
As stated in the syllabus: This course will practice labor-based grading (aka ungrading), which means that the focus will be detracted from grades and refocused on doing high quality work in a timely manner and receiving substantive feedback. Each assignment will have clearly stated criteria for earning a grade at the A level and I will assess that this criteria has been met, offer feedback for improvement, and a grade within that range. The A-level criteria for this essay are the following:
- Fulfilling all the assignment parameters as described above, including meeting the deadline.
- Producing a functioning work of generative writing, turned in as an HTML file.
- Writing a short essay that shows engagement with the material covered in this unit.
- The short essay is well organized, edited, and documented.