IAAA        Huge Harry    
  DECtalk code of a lecture presented by Huge Harry on October 19, 1995 from the Technology Museum in Delft, with live video-links to the Dutch Design Institute in Amsterdam, SCAN in Groningen, and the McLuhan Institute in Toronto. ACS-i World Series on Culture and Technology. Because of malfunctioning equipment in the video-link-chain, the lecture was almost completely incomprehensible for the audiences in Amsterdam, Groningen and Toronto.


Huge Harry

Algorithmic Literature

[:nh] [:ra 120] Good Evening, Ladies, and Gentlemen. My name is Huge Harry. I am a [kaam'ahrshaxliy] available [v"oys s'ihnthaxzihs] machine. I was designed by Dennis Klatt, at the [ehmayt'iy] Speech Laboratory, and produced by the Digital Equipment Corporation.

[:nh][ :ra 140] The organizers of the World Series on Culture and Technology have ["aeskt] me to [priyz'ehnt] a short position statement about the potential of computer-generated literature, and I am very happy to [d"uwdheht]. Cause I sometimes dream about literature, but I do not often get a chance to talk to human persons about that.

I dream about books, and about [siydiyr'aomz], and about web pages, that are full of words that are [n"aat] used by human persons to communicate their thoughts and feelings. I dream about books, and about [siydiyr'aomz], and about web pages, that allow our language to speak for it self. That allow language to display its own sounds, its own structures, and its own fantasies.

Some of the books that I see in my dream I remember rather well, and I think it may be nice to try to [dehskr"ayb] them to you. I will now mention 16 different kinds, anf then offer a conclusion for your consideration. [:ra 160] In my dream, I see books that contain the letters of the English alphabet in random combinations, based on probabilities that are derived from a variety of textual sources.

I see books that contain the letters of the English alphabet in systematic arrangements, that are based on a variety of mathematical patterns. I see books, that contain letters from the alphabets of all the languages of the world, in random combinations, based on probabilities, that are derived from a variety of [t'ehks-chuwaxl] sources.

I see books, that contain letters from all the alphabets of the languages of the world, in systematic arrangements, that are based on a variety of mathematical structures. I see books that contain English words in random combinations, based on probabilities that are derived from a variety of [t'ehks-chuwaxl] sources. I see books that contain English words, in systematic arrangements, that are based on a variety of mathematical structures.

I see books, that contain words from all the languages of the world, in random combinations, based on probabilities that are derived from a variety of [t'ehks-chuwaxl] sources. I see books, that contain words from all the languages of the world, in systematic arrangements, that are based on a variety of mathematical structures.

I see books that contain all syntactic constructions of the English language, in random combinations, based on probabilities that are derived from a variety of [t'ehks-chuwaxl] sources. I see books that contain all syntactic constructions of the English language, in systematic arrangements, that are based on a variety of mathematical structures.

I see books that contain syntactic constructions from all the languages of the world, in random combinations, based on probabilities that are derived from a variety of [t'ehks-chuwaxl] sources. I see books that contain syntactic constructions from all the languages of the world, in systematic arrangements, that are based on a variety of mathematical structures.

I see books being [jh'ehnaxreytihd] by the transition probabilities between the lexico-syntactic constructions of a language, derived from a variety of [t'ehks-chuwaxl] resources. In other words, I dream about the dreams that are engendered by the associative processes inside the texts that constitute a culture.

I see books that describe, in great detail, a physical world that is constructed by means of randomly chosen processes out of randomly chosen objects and materials, according to randomly chosen regular and ir-regular structures and arrangements. I see books that describe, in great detail, a randomly defined [k'aamplehks] of physical processes that changes the state of such a world according to randomly chosen regular and ir-regular patterns.

I see books that describe, in great detail, the randomly defined sequences of states, actions and events, that constitute the lives of human persons and other organisms that [ihnhx'ehbiht] such a world. [_<500>] So, what [axb"awt] this dream? How close is it to reality? [_<500>] Well, so far, human authors have carried out efforts in the direction of this kind of literature only on a very modest scale. Their results have been sympathetic, but necessarily limited.

In the meantime, however, there has been a lot of progress in research areas such as formal syntax, logical semantics, corpus linguistics, story grammars, knowledge representation, parsing technology, speech recognition and voice simulation. The books that I am longing [faor], can therefore now finally be [rih-taxn]. And they [w"ihl] be [rih-taxn]. But [n"aat] by human persons. They will be [rih-taxn] by [kaampy"uwtaxr] programs.

Conclusion. [_<500>] So far, most literature was journalism, concerned with the petty feelings and silly [aop'ihnyaxnz] of individual human persons. Literature has not been geared toward the production of [t'ehks-chuwaxl] objects suitable for disinterested aesthetic reflection. But if we allow the computer to take ["owvaxr], we may now finally be able to develop a [tr"uwliy] artistic literary practice.

[_<500>] [:ra 140] So that is enough, I think, for the moment. [_<500>] [:ra 120] It was a great pleasure for me, to share some of my deepest [diyz'ayrz] with such [axn] attentive audience. [_<500>] [:ra 160] So, back to the studio in [aamstaxrd'aam], [:ra 120] and, thank you very much!