Scott Rettberg

Bergen, Norway

A poetry generator for the imaginary city, Tokyo Garage is a remix of Nick Montfort's Taroko Gorge -- a nature poem generator built in JavaScript. I substituted all of the language of Montfort's work to create this new version of poetry generator, which plays with received stereotypes of the Tokyo metropolis and of urbanity in general. The language of Tokyo Garage in many ways inverts the intent of Montfort's original. And where Montfort was striving towards minimalist elegance, Tokyo Garage leans towards excess. I made only minimal modifications to the code itself, for example changing the speed at which the poem scrolls up the page, and changing the design of the page. I elected to indicate the origin of the poem in Montfort's work by leaving his name on the page, but struck through under mine. A machinimatic video reading was prepared for the DAC 2009 conference, including a clown reading the poem to an imaginary audience.

Scott Rettberg b. 1970 is Professor of Digital Culture in the Department of Linguistic, Literary, and Aesthetic Studies at the University of Bergen, Norway. He holds a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature (University of Cincinnati, 2002). Rettberg was the project leader of ELMCIP (Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice), a HERA-funded collaborative research project from 2010–2013. Rettberg is the author or coauthor of novel-length works of electronic literature and other digital narrative and poetry projects including The Unknown, Kind of Blue, Implementation, Toxi*City, Hearts and Minds: The Interrogations Project and others. His creative work has been exhibited both online and at art venues, including the Beall Center, the Slought Foundation, The Krannert Art Museum, and elsewhere. Rettberg is the cofounder and served as the first executive director of the nonprofit Electronic Literature Organization.

Web-based, relies on JavaScript

This is the first remix of Taroko Gorge and it was made as a kind of public inside joke meant for Nick Montfort to appreciate. This remix inverts the nature poem in which a limited set of natural elements are endlessly recombined, by more than doubling the dataset with urban and human elements. By changing the dataset for Montfort’s poem, renaming it Tokyo Garage, crossing out Nick Montfort’s name while linking to the original poem, and adding his own name underneath, Rettberg opened a door to remixing the poem, and established two traditions: wordplay based on the original title, and listing (yet striking out) previous remixers. Interestingly enough, several of the remixes that followed were based on Tokyo Garage, rather than on Montfort’s original poem. Read this poem to experience an endless dérive through an imagined Tokyo.

Downloadable Source File
Description : Source file
Requirements : Text editor

Virtual Character Reading (MP4)
Description : A video of a virtual character reading Tokyo Garage output
Requirements : Mp4 media player