Wayne Clements (GB)
"Love2" installation
love2 is an open source simulation of an emulation. This program simulates the Manchester Mark 1 computer's Loveletters (the first computer generated text) which in turn is the subject of an emulation written by the artist David Link. Link's program emulates the program written originally by Christopher Strachey in 1952.
love2 is a reverse engineering job created by repeatedly rerunning Link's Loveletters to obtain the text strings and all the variant sentence structures. These were then programmed in Perl. love2 uses a 'template structure', also known as a 'slot' or 'substitution' system. It then applies randomising techniques to create its variant texts.
love2 source code can be found here: http://www.in-vacua.com/love2_code.txt
"Totally forked!" talk outline
There are many rule-based ways of creating texts. love2 uses a 'template structure', also known as a 'slot' or 'substitution' system. (These systems pre-date computers.) It then applies randomising techniques to create its variant texts. Starting with Loveletters writings, it was possible to create a version of the original program – without ever seeing it. If the rules of a text generator, or any other artwork, can be derived, it may be cloned, transmitted, and displayed. The idea of the creation, dissemination and preservation of artworks by the means of open source code is a new approach in art, but one which has its roots in the instruction-based conceptual art of the 1960s.Biography
Wayne Clements is a visual artist and a writer. His artworks have been shown in many festivals and exhibitions of electronic art. un_wiki received the Award of Distinction, Net Vision, Prix Ars Electronica (2006), and was shown in Connecting Worlds, ICC Gallery Tokyo (2006), in a specially commissioned Japanese language version. His artworks have been shown recently in Madrid, Barcelona, and Athens; notably also in Valencia where logo_wiki was part of the curated presentation Antisocial Notworking.
He completed a practice-based Ph.D. in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design (2005) which investigated the relationship between art and computers.
