Digital Cutup - Revisited
Thinking⌗
The assignment for this project:
The digital cut-up revisited. In assignment #2, the tools available to you for cutting up and rearranging texts relied only on information present in the character data itself. Since then, we’ve learned several methods for incorporating outside information concerning syntax (i.e. with spaCy) and semantics (i.e., word vectors) into what we “know” about a text in question. Adapt your original digital cut-up assignment, making use of one of these new sources of information. What new aesthetic possibilities are made available if the unit of the cut-up can be a type of syntactic unit (instead of words, lines, characters), and if stretches of text can be algorithmically selected not at random, but based on their meaning?
Last time⌗
So, the last time I did this (Digital Cutup), most of my effort went into creating a collection of strings I could then randomly pick from, based on a word I was interested in.
I was pleased with the results last time. However, it didn’t quite achieve what I had in mind. I wanted the text produced to feel like it was ruminating on the 5W’s, time, and space. To sort of, go down a rabbit hole of thinking.
This time⌗
This time, I’m going to do a little bit of work to create a corpus to pull from, and then use vectors, calculated by spaCy, to find similar meaning sentences in these corpus’s.
Here are some of thinking notes:
~> vector relationships of 5W's (something more than just themselves?)
~> calc distance and point between two or three
~> Can vectors be used to ask questions? ~> *distributional semantics* (spaCy vectors)
~> structure of the sentences I wrote (5 for each W)
~> use vectors to break down a sentence?
~> pull out the 5Ws? replace them with something?
~> how to abstract it?
~> time as an actor ~> analyze text and fill these in?
~> does that "reveal" anything?
~> new form and structure
The plan⌗
After some thinking, I came up with three things to try. Hopefully, this will lead to output that feels a little more like someone trying to think about the 5Ws, space, and time.
- explore vectors for 5Ws
- what is the average W?
- explore sentence meaning between texts
- pull sentences from one text and find a similar meaning one in the other texts from the group
- go back and forth between texts
- pull sentence with 5W, time, or space in it
- manipulate the pulled sentence then find a similar meaning one in the other text
- repeat with all the terms
The code⌗
Note: the post continues inside the embed below
Structure in a poem⌗
I wanted to highlight the structure of one of the texts produced. This a good example of how the random tabs can effect the reading of the produced text.
Although you could read this left to right, because of things like proximity, I feel like I should read the terms on the left as one block and the sentences on the right separately.
A poem⌗
ask yourself honestly
But what he says about thinking in trains, and
concentration, and so on, is not for me.
what
Our knowledge of things where we are not, and of
things when we are not, is essentially the same—
an inference (sometimes a mistaken inference)
from brain impressions, including memory, here
and now.
where
For myself, I know nothing more "actual," more
bursting with plain common-sense, applicable to
the daily life of plain persons like you and me
(who hate airs, pose, and nonsense) than Marcus
Aurelius or Epictetus.
who
The stationary observer and the aviator disagreed
as to whose cigar lasted the longer time.
who
For myself, I know nothing more "actual,"
more bursting with plain common-sense,
applicable to the daily life of plain
persons like you and me (who hate airs,
pose, and nonsense) than Marcus Aurelius
or Epictetus.
who
Our knowledge of things where we are not, and
of things when we are not, is essentially the
same— an inference (sometimes a mistaken
inference) from brain impressions, including
memory, here and now.
when
Everything--the whole complex movement of the
universe--is as simple as that--when you can
sufficiently put two and two together.
when
Thus we have a suitable analogy for a circle
whose circumference is less than π times its
diameter.
who
And you would be able to tell us why, as the
natural result of cause and effect, the longest
straight street in London is about a yard and a
half in length, while the longest absolutely
straight street in Paris extends for miles.
why
Just as we picture different kinds of two-
dimensional space as differently curved surfaces
in our ordinary space of three-dimensions, so we
are now picturing different kinds of four-
dimensional space-time as differently curved
surfaces in a Euclidean space of five
dimensions.
time
It is as well not to chatter too much
about what one is doing, and not to
betray a too-pained sadness at the
spectacle of a whole world deliberately
wasting so many hours out of every day,
and therefore never really living.
who
Just as we picture different kinds of two-
dimensional space as differently curved
surfaces in our ordinary space of three-
dimensions, so we are now picturing
different kinds of four-dimensional space-
time as differently curved surfaces in a
Euclidean space of five dimensions.
space
And when you have done, ask yourself
honestly whether you still dislike poetry.