Christian Bok

Experimental Poet

THE PIECEMEAL BARD IS DECONSTRUCTED

05 Sep 202250 EDITIONS

‘The Piecemeal Bard Is Deconstructed’ responds to the writing of RACTER — a digital program that has authored a poetic volume, entitled ‘The Policeman’s Beard Is Half-Constructed’ (the ﬁrst of all books to become a bestseller fabricated by a machine). The essay (initially published in 2002 at the dawn of the Internet) speaks to one facet of the aesthetics in the literary movement called Conceptualism (a poetic school founded in 1998 by both me and my peers: Kenneth Goldsmith and Darren Wershler). The article addresses the implications of computer-enhanced authorship (which has, over time, matured to include the current, ongoing experiments with GPT-3 and other artificial intellects). The essay addresses the germinal concepts that have come to inform the the algorithmic expression of poets on the blockchain, including (among others) the likes of Sasha Stiles, Ross Goodwin, Ana Maria Caballero, and Johnny Dean Mann.

Christian Bok

stay ahead with our newsletter