The Function as a Breath of Thought: On the Computer as a Compositional and Performance Tool for Poetry

Mike Bagwell and William Hazard

The Intersection of Computing and Poetry

• Technological progress continuously shapes artistic expression from the pen to the typewriter
• Creative coding represents a new phase of available capabilities exponentially amplifying potentials already present in poetry
• We'll look at tools, concepts, and examples
  • interactivity with React and p5 in a website I've put together to hold examples
  • theoretical implications of computational randomness
  • Perlin noise and gamma distribution for data visualization of surreality

p5.js: A Toolkit for Creative Coding

• p5.js is a free and open-source JavaScript library.
• Designed to make animated, visual and interactive coding accessible to artists, designers, educators, and beginners.
• Based on the Processing based in Java
• Enables the creation of interactive visuals and experiences directly in web browsers

Example 1: Interactivity with p5.js + React

• Uses p5-wrapper, which essentially just uses a ref and calls a new method on the p5 instance

canvasInstanceRef.current?.updateWithProps?.(
  userProvidedProps as unknown as Props,
);

• React enables user interface controls (buttons, sliders) + integrate with existing sites
• Code shows draw method, the ellipse shape, and color with React controls

Example 2: Ripple

• an idea I've had since I started programming
• draws a grid of text to canvas and then produces a ripple on mouse move or click
• extensive controls including amplitude, growth rate, the text itself
• emergent properties whenever creative experiment is at play: react controls removing background makes for wild persistent traces

Ripple Interpretation

• Interaction + Shakespeare's Sonnet 18: fun connections like "rough winds", "the eye of heaven", "By chance or nature's changing course"
• About how writing feigns an immortality. But where does the beloved of the poem become eternal?
• In the reader, in the 'now' of the moment of reading that encompasses also the entire culture at hand in language's net of meaning and play of signifiers
• to read is to interact, to join in a collaborative creation of meaning

Bergson's Concept of Lived Duration

• Henri Bergson's philosophy contrasts subjective, lived time with objective, scientific time
• "Duration" is a continuous, flowing, and indivisible experience, intertwined with consciousness and memory
• The act of reading when viewed through this duration is not pulling meaning out of a static text, but a collaborative creation of meaning between the reader, a community, and the author

Ripple Code

• has a lot of trig logic, p.sin, p.cos, p.atan2 (for 2 argument archtangent to get the angle from ripple center to character position) etc.
• strength: Ripple intensity. Stronger ripples displace text more.
• growthRate: How quickly the radius increases in each frame of the animation.
• decayRate: How quickly the strength fades over time. A value slightly less than 1 (e.g., 0.95) means the strength decreases by 5% each frame.
• amplitude: Controls the maximum displacement distance of the text affected by the ripple. Think of it like the height of a water wave.
• createRandomColor generates random rgb values via 3 calls to p.random(255)

Example 3: Forest

Typographical experiment

precursor to my multimedia, experimental translation of Gilgamesh

Started out as vector art, randomness mimicked via copy/paste of t's

Forest Philosophy

• Trees are distributed according to various algorithms including Perlin noise and actual studies on forest distributions
• Represents a Deleuzian becoming-forest, a mutual disintegration into a new assemblage of systems with emergent properties
• Trees sway to replicate the wind
• A data visualization of that which is at the border of what can be visualized or even conceptualized, a dream data vis

Forest Code

• Loading a specific font
• Reproducible randomness with p.randomSeed(42)
• Distribution modes:
  • Scaled Perlin noise with p.noise()
  • Gaussian distribution p.randomGaussian(mean, stdDeviation) for a bell curve to cluster towards the center
  • Gamma equation with a Probability Density Function
• Clicking pulls trees into words
  • p.lerp for linear interpolation, combined with easeOutCubic
  • centroid calculation

Example 3: Towards

• Extends William S. Burroughs' cutup technique digitally
• Randomly selects and positions public domain images with random opacity and complex shapes
• Predefined poem animates through the frames, order within that frame is indeterminate
• Generates unexpected juxtapositions and new meaning

The Poetic Computer

• The computer can be an instrument for poetic composition and performance
• Instantaneous communication, live collaboration between various readers and authors, unexpected outcomes
• Augments human creativity, not replacing it
• Lot of new avenues for collaborative human-computer artistic expression
• See github.com/low-ghost/interactive-poetry for these slides, code, and links to live examples