The Machine as Alien Ethnographer
summary
A self‑built machine cobbles together discarded electronics, looks with a webcam, maps visual input to five taste values using a neural network -> taste vectors trained on rubbish and rot, and uses those values to select vocabulary and drive a Markov poetry generator (previously a genetic algorithm). Implementation uses open source C++ frameworks and Python NLP, sensors, actuators and a thermal printer; works live—projected and printed poems appear in public shows, require regular repair after audience handling, and produce intermittently intelligible, often uncanny lines.
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chapters (14)
- 0:00Introduction
- 1:16Lauras background
- 2:30The 14 categories of animals
- 4:00The order of things
- 4:47The philosophical movement
- 7:08Secret Cinema
- 8:41Alien Projections
- 9:14Alien Ethnographer
- 10:48Tools
- 11:52The Five Little Robots
- 15:55The Bald Eagle
- 16:30Poetry Machine
- 20:57The Heap
- 26:11Conclusion
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