I’m in Canada today — Toronto, specifically — to celebrate the publication of Output: An Anthology of Computer-Generated Text, 1953–2023. (ed. Lillian-Yvonne Bertram & Nick Montfort, MIT Press & Counterpath 2024) in conversation with Matt Nish-Lapidus and with a reading by Kavi Davvoori. I haven’t been here very long, and the Output event doesn’t start for an hour and fifteen minutes, but I’ve already enjoyed walking from the airport, and then around town, not to mention consuming a smoked meat omelette.
While I’ve come to praise Output and not to bury the lede, I wanted to take this occasion to thank two Canadian institutions for making another recent book of mine possible. Narcissystem is an amazing production by Montreal-based Anteism and a great example of innovating publishing / publishing as an artistic practice. Ryan & Harley at Anteism realized this project with a foil seal on the cover, a Smyth sewn binding, and a special feature on the inside front cover that really makes this bookwork / artists’ book complete. The other organization I must thank is the Canada Council for the Arts, which provided support to make this publication possible.
Narcissystem is a computer-generated book, of the sort represented in Output, but the program that generated it is quite remote from “Generated AI.” Perhaps it’s more honest, however, about the way computer systems (like poems) tend to mainly gaze lovingly at themselves?