SUMMARY How can artists harness algorithmic processes to generate poetry, music, and dance? And what can we learn from the longer history of creative coding and early experiments in human-computer collaboration?In this live episode recorded during June's 2024 SpokenWeb Symposium, producers Nicholas Beauchesne and Chelsea Miya venture into the roots and future directions of algorithmic art.Thank you to interviewees Michael O’Driscoll, Kevin William Davis, and Kate Sicchio, as well as the live studio audience.*SOUNDFX & MUSICThe score was created by Nix Nihil through remixing samples from Kevin William Davis and Voiceprint and adding synthesizers and sound effects. Additional score sampled from performances by Davis and Kate Sicchio.Davis, Kevin William. “Elegia.” On Remembrance. Created with the Murmurator software in collaboration with Eli Stine. SoundCloud audio, 5:25, 2020, https://soundcloud.com/kevinwdavis/elegia.Davis, Kevin William. “From “From ‘David’”” From Three PFR-3 Poems by Jackon Mac Low for percussion quartet and speaker; performance by UVA percussion quartet. SoundCloud audio, 4:13, 2017, https://soundcloud.com/kevinwdavis/from-from-david.Pixabay. “Crane load at construction site.” Pixabay, https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/crane-load-at-construction-site-57551/.Sherfey, John, and Congregation. “Nothing but the Blood.” Powerhouse for God (CD SFS60006), Smithsonian Folkways Special Series, 2014. Recorded by Jeff Titon and Ken George. Reproduced with permission of Jeff Titon.Sicchio, Kate. “Amelia and the Machine.” Dancer Amelia Virtue. Robotics: Patrick Martin, Charles Dietzel, Alicia Olivo. Music: Melody Loveless, Kate Sicchio. Vimeo, uploaded by Kate Sicchio, 2022, https://vimeo.com/678480077.ARCHIVAL AUDIO & INTERVIEWSAltmann, Anna. “Popular Poetics” [segment]. “Printing and Poetry in the Computer Era.” Voiceprint. Dept. of Radio and Television and CKUA, 20 May 1981.Davis, Kevin William. Interviewed by Chelsea Miya for The SpokenWeb Podcast. 25 Oct. 2022.Jackson, Mac Low. “A Vocabulary for Sharon Belle Mattlin.” Performed by Susan Musgrave, George Macbeth, Sean O'Huigin, bpNichol, and Jackson Mac Low, 1974. PennSound, http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Mac-Low/CDs/Doings/Mac-Low-Jackson_09_Vocabulary-for-Mattlin_Doings_1982.mp3.O’Driscoll, Michael. Interviewed by Chelsea Miya for The SpokenWeb Podcast. 23 Aug. 2022.Onufrijchuk, Roman. Performing “Tape Mark I,” a computer poem by Nanni Balestrini. “Printing and Poetry in the Computer Era.” Voiceprint. Dept. of Radio and Television and CKUA, 20 May 1981.Sicchio, Kate. Interviewed by Chelsea Miya for The SpokenWeb Podcast. 4 Nov. 2023.WORKS CITEDBalestrini, Nanni. “Tape Mark I.” Translated by Edwin Morgan. Cybernetic Serendipity: the Computer and the Arts. Studio International, 1968.Davis, Kevin William. From “From ‘David’” [score]. 2017. http://kevindavismusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/From-From-David.pdf.Dean, R. T., and Alex McLean, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Music. Oxford University Press, 2018.Higgins, Hannah. Fluxus Experience. University of California Press, 2002.Mac Low, Jackson. Vocabulary for Sharon Belle Mattlin. Instructions. 23 January 1974. Mimegraphed sheet, 28 x 22 cm. Bonotto Collection, 1.c, Fondazione Bonotto, Colceresa (VI), Italy. https://www.fondazionebonotto.org/en/collection/poetry/maclowjackson/4/3091.html.Mac Low, Jackson. Vocabulary for Sharon Belle Mattlin. Instructions. 19 September 1974. Mimegraphed sheet, 28 x 22 cm. Bonotto Collection, 1.d, Fondazione Bonotto, Colceresa (VI), Italy. https://www.fondazionebonotto.org/en/collection/poetry/maclowjackson/4/3091.html.Johnston, David Jhave. “1969: Jackson Mac Low: PFR-3” [blogpost] Digital Poetics Prehistoric. https://glia.ca/conu/digitalPoetics/prehistoric-blog/2008/08/26/1969-jackson-mac-low-pfr-3-poems/.Mac Low, Jackson. A Vocabulary for Sharon Belle Mattlin. 1973. Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, CC-47567-68576.Mac Low, Jackson. Thing of Beauty, edited by Anne Tardos. University of California Press, 2008. https://doi-org.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/10.1525/9780520933293.O’Driscoll, Michael. “By the Numbers: Jackson Mac Low's Light Poems and Algorithmic Digraphism.” Time in Time: Short Poems, Long Poems, and the Rhetoric of North American Avant-Gardism, 1963-2008, edited by J. Mark Smith. McGill-Queens University Press, 2013, pp. 109-131.Russo, Emiliano, Gabriele Zaverio and Vittorio Bellanich. “TAPE MARK 1 by Nanni Balestrini: Research and Historical Reconstruction.” The ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, June 2017. https://zkm.de/en/tape-mark-1-by-nanni-balestrini-research-and-historical-reconstruction.Stine, Eli, and Kevin William Davis. “The Murmurator: A Flocking Simulation-Driven Multi-Channel Software Instrument for Collaborative Improvisation.” International Computer ...
