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August 5, 2009, 10:19 AM ET
New York U. Computers Learn Creative Writing
Students in a summer course at New York University spent their classes teaching creative writing—to their computers.
After learning the basics of the programming language Python, seven graduate students in NYU’s Interactive Telecommunication Program turned to digital writing, making their computers analyze text, mangle it, and remix it, resulting in new compositions, according to their instructor, Adam Parrish.
One student took text from news publications, including The New York Times, and had a computer turn the text into poetry. Another student created a Facebook status generator, as well as a poetry generator that "will enable you to write like the good grey poet, Walt Whitman." It uses an approach similar to that of the game Mad Libs—you insert your own words.
In the culmination of the summer course, students will present some of their work at a performance on the campus Wednesday night.
"A lot of times, [digital writing] ends up being something that people will find a link to on the Internet and read and be amused," Mr. Parrish says. But his students could do more than have others read their work on a computer screen—their projects could be read out loud, explained, and presented. "The goal of the performance was really explore all of the possibilities of this medium," he says.
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