User:Thijshijsijsjss/Gossamery/The New Media Reader/The Oulipo - Revision history

Thijshijsijsjss: Fix typo

2025-10-17T10:44:40Z

Fix typo

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:44, 17 October 2025
Line 37:		Line 37:
	A cute, short choose-your-own-adventure-like story that with 21 'nodes' manages to realize many mechanics of the genre: branches, different endings, loops, and directions that let you escape the graph of story nodes all together (in this case by referring you to a dictionary to acquire your own interpretation).		A cute, short choose-your-own-adventure-like story that with 21 'nodes' manages to realize many mechanics of the genre: branches, different endings, loops, and directions that let you escape the graph of story nodes all together (in this case by referring you to a dictionary to acquire your own interpretation).

	This work was originally published in 1973, preceding the CYOA books made by Edward Packard that started serial publishing in 1976 and book publishing in 1979 <ref>Scott Kraft (October 10, 1981). "He Chose His Own Adventure". [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_nUfAAAAIBAJ&pg=1663,2191360&dq=choose-your-own-adventure&hl=en The Day]. Retrieved June 20, 2024.</ref><ref>Sandi Scaffetti (March 30, 1986). "Interactive fiction". [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=2KwzAAAAIBAJ&pg=5210,5557358&dq=choose-your-own-adventure&hl=en The Beaver County Times]. Retrieved June 20, 2024.</ref>. Just like these stories, ''Yours for the Telling'' doesn't shy away from making the choices explicit, though not diegetic -- contrary to the way this is often done in contemporary video games. However, there is a difference between Queneau's story and those of Packard: in ''Yours for the Telling'', the 'you' addressed in the story is the individual of the reader. There is no seperation between the 'you' reading the story and the 'you' addressed in the story. This in stark contrast to the CYAO books: the addressed 'you' deciding to venture into a dark cave is a 'puppet-you', controlled and existing in the mind of the 'reader-you', but whose existences doesn't fully coincide. (Compare this to Calvino's [[User:Thijshijsijsjss/Gossamery/Cybernetics_and_Ghosts\|Cybernetics and Ghosts]], section II<ref>~~Calvano~~, I. (1986) 'Cybernetics and Ghosts,' in Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature. Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, pp. 3–27.</ref>)		This work was originally published in 1973, preceding the CYOA books made by Edward Packard that started serial publishing in 1976 and book publishing in 1979 <ref>Scott Kraft (October 10, 1981). "He Chose His Own Adventure". [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_nUfAAAAIBAJ&pg=1663,2191360&dq=choose-your-own-adventure&hl=en The Day]. Retrieved June 20, 2024.</ref><ref>Sandi Scaffetti (March 30, 1986). "Interactive fiction". [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=2KwzAAAAIBAJ&pg=5210,5557358&dq=choose-your-own-adventure&hl=en The Beaver County Times]. Retrieved June 20, 2024.</ref>. Just like these stories, ''Yours for the Telling'' doesn't shy away from making the choices explicit, though not diegetic -- contrary to the way this is often done in contemporary video games. However, there is a difference between Queneau's story and those of Packard: in ''Yours for the Telling'', the 'you' addressed in the story is the individual of the reader. There is no seperation between the 'you' reading the story and the 'you' addressed in the story. This in stark contrast to the CYAO books: the addressed 'you' deciding to venture into a dark cave is a 'puppet-you', controlled and existing in the mind of the 'reader-you', but whose existences doesn't fully coincide. (Compare this to Calvino's [[User:Thijshijsijsjss/Gossamery/Cybernetics_and_Ghosts\|Cybernetics and Ghosts]], section II<ref>Calvino, I. (1986) 'Cybernetics and Ghosts,' in Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature. Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, pp. 3–27.</ref>)

	Just like with [[#A_Hundred_Thousand_Billion_Poems\|A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems]], there's the question how the form factor impacts the experience. I have noticed that digital choose your own adventures (literal ones, or more videogame-y ones where the options are implicit or the option space invisible) often don't convey this feeling of sprawling potential to me. In a paradoxical manner, being able to capture the bounds of the story, its graphical finality, makes me feel the optionality and interconnectivity more.		Just like with [[#A_Hundred_Thousand_Billion_Poems\|A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems]], there's the question how the form factor impacts the experience. I have noticed that digital choose your own adventures (literal ones, or more videogame-y ones where the options are implicit or the option space invisible) often don't convey this feeling of sprawling potential to me. In a paradoxical manner, being able to capture the bounds of the story, its graphical finality, makes me feel the optionality and interconnectivity more.

Thijshijsijsjss: Fix typo

2025-01-18T14:19:42Z

Fix typo

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:19, 18 January 2025
Line 37:		Line 37:
	A cute, short choose-your-own-adventure-like story that with 21 'nodes' manages to realize many mechanics of the genre: branches, different endings, loops, and directions that let you escape the graph of story nodes all together (in this case by referring you to a dictionary to acquire your own interpretation).		A cute, short choose-your-own-adventure-like story that with 21 'nodes' manages to realize many mechanics of the genre: branches, different endings, loops, and directions that let you escape the graph of story nodes all together (in this case by referring you to a dictionary to acquire your own interpretation).

	This work was originally published in 1973, preceding the CYOA books made by Edward Packard that started serial publishing in 1976 and book publishing in 1979 <ref>Scott Kraft (October 10, 1981). "He Chose His Own Adventure". [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_nUfAAAAIBAJ&pg=1663,2191360&dq=choose-your-own-adventure&hl=en The Day]. Retrieved June 20, 2024.</ref><ref>Sandi Scaffetti (March 30, 1986). "Interactive fiction". [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=2KwzAAAAIBAJ&pg=5210,5557358&dq=choose-your-own-adventure&hl=en The Beaver County Times]. Retrieved June 20, 2024.</ref>. Just like these stories, ''Yours for the Telling'' doesn't shy away from making the choices explicit, though not diegetic -- contrary to the way this is often done in contemporary video games. However, there is a difference between Queneau's story and those of Packard: in ''Yours for the Telling'', the 'you' addressed in the story is the individual of the reader. There is no seperation between the 'you' reading the story and the 'you' addressed in the story. This in stark contrast to the CYAO books: the addressed 'you' deciding to venture into a dark cave is a 'puppet-you', controlled and existing in the mind of the 'reader-you', but whose existences doesn't fully ~~coinside~~. (Compare this to Calvino's [[User:Thijshijsijsjss/Gossamery/Cybernetics_and_Ghosts\|Cybernetics and Ghosts]], section II<ref>Calvano, I. (1986) 'Cybernetics and Ghosts,' in Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature. Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, pp. 3–27.</ref>)		This work was originally published in 1973, preceding the CYOA books made by Edward Packard that started serial publishing in 1976 and book publishing in 1979 <ref>Scott Kraft (October 10, 1981). "He Chose His Own Adventure". [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_nUfAAAAIBAJ&pg=1663,2191360&dq=choose-your-own-adventure&hl=en The Day]. Retrieved June 20, 2024.</ref><ref>Sandi Scaffetti (March 30, 1986). "Interactive fiction". [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=2KwzAAAAIBAJ&pg=5210,5557358&dq=choose-your-own-adventure&hl=en The Beaver County Times]. Retrieved June 20, 2024.</ref>. Just like these stories, ''Yours for the Telling'' doesn't shy away from making the choices explicit, though not diegetic -- contrary to the way this is often done in contemporary video games. However, there is a difference between Queneau's story and those of Packard: in ''Yours for the Telling'', the 'you' addressed in the story is the individual of the reader. There is no seperation between the 'you' reading the story and the 'you' addressed in the story. This in stark contrast to the CYAO books: the addressed 'you' deciding to venture into a dark cave is a 'puppet-you', controlled and existing in the mind of the 'reader-you', but whose existences doesn't fully coincide. (Compare this to Calvino's [[User:Thijshijsijsjss/Gossamery/Cybernetics_and_Ghosts\|Cybernetics and Ghosts]], section II<ref>Calvano, I. (1986) 'Cybernetics and Ghosts,' in Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature. Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, pp. 3–27.</ref>)

	Just like with [[#A_Hundred_Thousand_Billion_Poems\|A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems]], there's the question how the form factor impacts the experience. I have noticed that digital choose your own adventures (literal ones, or more videogame-y ones where the options are implicit or the option space invisible) often don't convey this feeling of sprawling potential to me. In a paradoxical manner, being able to capture the bounds of the story, its graphical finality, makes me feel the optionality and interconnectivity more.		Just like with [[#A_Hundred_Thousand_Billion_Poems\|A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems]], there's the question how the form factor impacts the experience. I have noticed that digital choose your own adventures (literal ones, or more videogame-y ones where the options are implicit or the option space invisible) often don't convey this feeling of sprawling potential to me. In a paradoxical manner, being able to capture the bounds of the story, its graphical finality, makes me feel the optionality and interconnectivity more.

Thijshijsijsjss: Remove more whitespace

2024-08-01T16:18:09Z

Remove more whitespace

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:18, 1 August 2024
Line 77:		Line 77:

	With these sets of constraints, a computer aid can produce scenario's possible. This, Calvino argues, is not an act of replacing the creative act of the author. Instead, it liberates them from the chains of combinatorial search, allowing them to focus on the 'clinamen' that with which they can lift the text to a work of art.		With these sets of constraints, a computer aid can produce scenario's possible. This, Calvino argues, is not an act of replacing the creative act of the author. Instead, it liberates them from the chains of combinatorial search, allowing them to focus on the 'clinamen' that with which they can lift the text to a work of art.
	~~<noinclude>~~

	===References===		<noinclude>===References===
	<references />		<references />
	</noinclude>		</noinclude>

Thijshijsijsjss: Remove redundant whitespace

2024-08-01T16:17:36Z

Remove redundant whitespace

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:17, 1 August 2024
Line 77:		Line 77:

	With these sets of constraints, a computer aid can produce scenario's possible. This, Calvino argues, is not an act of replacing the creative act of the author. Instead, it liberates them from the chains of combinatorial search, allowing them to focus on the 'clinamen' that with which they can lift the text to a work of art.		With these sets of constraints, a computer aid can produce scenario's possible. This, Calvino argues, is not an act of replacing the creative act of the author. Instead, it liberates them from the chains of combinatorial search, allowing them to focus on the 'clinamen' that with which they can lift the text to a work of art.

	<noinclude>		<noinclude>

Thijshijsijsjss: Add words on anticombinatoris

2024-08-01T16:17:05Z

Add words on anticombinatoris

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:17, 1 August 2024
Line 70:		Line 70:

	===Prose and Anticombinatorics===		===Prose and Anticombinatorics===
			* Read on 2024-08-01

			This text by Italo Calvino is a direct follow up to Paul Fournel's ''The Centre Pompidou Experiment'', both in ''The New Media Reader'' as in their original publications. The former explicitly references the latter in the introductory words. In contrast to Fournel's text, that investigates the use of a computer as a literary aid in realizing combinatorial potential, Calvino's focusses on the anticombinatorial character of the computer aid that from a large number of possibilities selects those few realizations compliant with specific constraints.

			The text starts with an exerpt from yet another text by Calvino, a short story in the making, in which a book is report is found that describes twelve sinister events. The task of the story's protagonist is to find the people who were guilty of and were victim to these acts. Calvino then goes on the descirbe different categorizations of the acts, and gives sets of constraints that might acts as deduction rules. As an example: an act of suicide by character A might not preceed an act of blackmailing by A, as A is assumed to by dead by the time of the second act.

			With these sets of constraints, a computer aid can produce scenario's possible. This, Calvino argues, is not an act of replacing the creative act of the author. Instead, it liberates them from the chains of combinatorial search, allowing them to focus on the 'clinamen' that with which they can lift the text to a work of art.

	<noinclude>		<noinclude>

	===References===		===References===
	<references />		<references />
	</noinclude>		</noinclude>

Thijshijsijsjss: Add references header

2024-08-01T15:44:58Z

Add references header

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:44, 1 August 2024
Line 72:		Line 72:

	<noinclude>		<noinclude>
			===References===
	<references />		<references />
	</noinclude>		</noinclude>

Thijshijsijsjss: Add references section

2024-08-01T15:43:03Z

Add references section

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:43, 1 August 2024
Line 70:		Line 70:

	===Prose and Anticombinatorics===		===Prose and Anticombinatorics===

			<noinclude>
			<references />
			</noinclude>

Thijshijsijsjss: Write some words on computer involvements

2024-07-08T14:10:37Z

Write some words on computer involvements

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:10, 8 July 2024
Line 60:		Line 60:

	===Computer and Writer: The Centre Pompidou Experiment===		===Computer and Writer: The Centre Pompidou Experiment===
			* Read on 2024-07-08
			* By Paul Fournel

			A short text describing early applications of computers (CLIs) in literature. Fournel creates two categories, the first one being so naturalized now that it is almost surprising to see it written: aided reading. In this case, it isn't so much about providing accessibility through technology, but rather that the physical action to consume certain texts can be awkward, tedious or take away from it's contents. [[# A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems\|A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems]] is given as an example: the strips of text are too tedious to manipulate. Instead, a computer could present you the different poems tidily. Another example given is [[# Yours for the Telling\| Yours for the Telling]], with the motivation that the game dominates the reading of the text itself. I can see how these examples have some truth to them, but as stated in other entries, to me the form is so much of the message that it's difficult to translate the experiences in more streamlined ones without losing their defining merit.

			The second category is aided creation and concerns the involvement of the computer between author and created work. Multiple flavors are described, one of which being: ''author > computer > reader > computer . work''. The author provides some 'building blocks' for the reader, and they 'build' something that then becomes the work (with computational involvement along the way). This sounds not only very xpubian, but also has untapped potential in many fields other than literature (e.g. [[User:Thijshijsijsjss/PTMoMNBM/Web-to-Print_and_Play\|Print-and-Play Games]]). In [[User:Thijshijsijsjss/Gossamery/Cybernetics_and_Ghosts\|Cybernetics and ghosts]], Calvino describes how the 'I' is split when writing. This flavor of aided creation also suggests a split of the work itself: an imagined work as conjured by the author, an intermediate work as shown to the reader, a 'completed' work as handed off by the computer, and many a potential work for different combinatorial outcomes.

			Although aided reading and creation have evolved and naturalized a lot over the almost 40 years since the publication of this text in 1986, I don't know if these various applications have so much concerned themselves with literature. Or rather, if contemporary literature wants to concern itself with them. In fact, with recent AI developments, aided creation is getting a negative connotation. But what about all those aids we like to ignore? Is a thesaurus not a combinatorial writing aid? Is my writing not fundamentally guided by the interfaces in which I write?

	===Prose and Anticombinatorics===		===Prose and Anticombinatorics===

Thijshijsijsjss: Add some words regarding the connection to play

2024-07-08T12:56:23Z

Add some words regarding the connection to play

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:56, 8 July 2024
Line 42:		Line 42:

	===A Brief History of the Oulipo===		===A Brief History of the Oulipo===
			* Read on 2024-06-20
			* By Jean Lescure

			This text presents an overview of some Oulipo history and by doing so, naturally has connections to many other texts. For example, some touched upon ideas about inspiration and the definition of literature are explored in more depth in [[User:Thijshijsijsjss/Gossamery/Cybernetics_and_Ghosts\|Cybernetics and Ghosts]], by Oulipo's Calvino.

			More interesting, maybe, is a connection present through all work by the Oulipo I have met thus far: a connection to the concept op play. In this text, Raymond Queneau's ''Odile'' is quoted:
			<blockquote>
			The really inspired person is never inspired, but always inspired.
			</blockquote>
			With this statement, the objectivity of literature is implied (according to Lescure). This objectivity made it possible to ''explore'' literature through the modes of manipulation, as one would explore the field of mathematics. This exploration is often game-like. In fact, it's even referred to as 'games of language' or 'combinatorial play'. In ''Homo Ludens'', Huizinga declares the first characteristic of play ''all play is a volunatry activity''. We see this sentiment reflected in the play of language, by Queneau's words:

			<blockquote>
			The only literature is voluntary literature.
			</blockquote>

	===For a Potential Analysis of Combinatory Literature===		===For a Potential Analysis of Combinatory Literature===

Thijshijsijsjss: Fix typo

2024-06-25T09:26:09Z

Fix typo

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:26, 25 June 2024
Line 43:		Line 43:
	===A Brief History of the Oulipo===		===A Brief History of the Oulipo===

	===For a Potential Analysis of Combinatory ~~Literatire~~===		===For a Potential Analysis of Combinatory Literature===

	===Computer and Writer: The Centre Pompidou Experiment===		===Computer and Writer: The Centre Pompidou Experiment===

	===Prose and Anticombinatorics===		===Prose and Anticombinatorics===