The four bash agents, ‘cat’, ‘tr’, ‘sort’ and ‘uniq’ easily collaborate in order to provide us in less than a second with a list of unique words in a text.
Their play allows for different readings. » Read the rest of this entry «
Revisiting Little Brother: the illusion of being unique
May 2nd, 2014 § 0 comments § permalink
Revisiting Little Brother in sms messages
May 2nd, 2014 § 0 comments § permalink
LTTL BRTHR
CHPTR 1
[[THS CHPTR S DDCTD T BKKPHNX BKS N TRNT, CND
[[BKKPHNX BKS: HTTP://WWW
‘M SNR T CSR CHVZ HGH N SN FRNCSC’S SNNY MSSN DSTRCT, ND THT MKS M N F TH MST SRVLLD PPL N TH WRLD
*NT* PRNNCD “DBL-Y-N-NN-FV-T-ZR-NN” — NLSS Y’R CLLSS DSCPLNRY FFCR WH’S FR NGH BHND TH CRV THT Y STLL CLL TH NTRNT “TH NFRMTN SPRHGHWY
KNW JST SCH CLLSS PRSN, ND HS NM S FRD BNSN, N F THR VC-PRNCPLS T CSR CHVZ
“MRCS YLLW,” H SD VR TH P N FRDY MRNNG
GRBBD MY BG ND FLDD MY LPTP THR-QRTRS SHT — DDN’T WNT T BLW MY DWNLDS — ND GT RDY FR TH NVTBL
“RPRT T TH DMNSTRTN FFC MMDTLY
Revisiting Little Brother – the l33t novel
April 18th, 2014 § 0 comments § permalink
L1ttl3 Br0th3r
1’m 4 s3n10r 4t C3s4r Ch4v3z h1gh 1n S4n Fr4nc1sc0’s sunny M1ss10n d1str1ct, 4nd th4t m4k3s m3 0n3 0f th3 m0st surv31ll3d p30pl3 1n th3 w0rld. My n4m3 1s M4rcus Y4ll0w, but b4ck wh3n th1s st0ry st4rts, 1 w4s g01ng by w1n5t0n. Pr0n0unc3d “W1nst0n.”
Inspired by the gaming culture of Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, the novel has been rewritten in basic l33t speak by the Bash agent ‘sed’, replacing A by 4, E by 3, I by 1, O by 0.
L33t was invented by hackers in the 80’s to prevent their websites from simple keyword searches. It was widely spread by online gamers afterwards. Phrases such as ‘I am elite’ became common place, and somewhere down the line l33t speak crept in, reforming the phrase into ’1 4m 3l1t3′ in order to demonstrate that the speaker was a hacker and someone to be feared. L33t speak became so succesfull that the use of it now is cliché.
Our Bash agent seems to confirm the cliché: it only takes a oneliner of less than 50 characters to turn an entire novel into the perfectly legible retro-language, and this, in less than a second. As a reader it raises a question to ex-users of L33t: could the experience of reading the novel in the different degrees of l33t-complexity be compared to reading it in Old English, in Shakespeare’s Early Modern English or in Chaucer’s Middle English?
The oneliner:
$ cat Cory_Doctorow_-_Little_Brother.txt | sed ‘s/[aA]/4/g ; s/[eE]/3/g ; s/[Ii]/1/g ; s/[oO]/0/g’ > novel.txt
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Read more about this project: 1984 Little Brother Git
You find more versions of the novel on this blog and on gitorious.
Revisiting Little Brother – Reading the novel as an anaphor
April 5th, 2014 § 0 comments § permalink
You wouldn’t want the Nazis running the country.
“You wouldn’t understand.
“You wouldn’t believe it.
“You wouldn’t –”
You would have ended up in jail in a week, two tops.
“You won’t get caught,” I said.
You won’t be able to fight the feeling that you’re dying.
“You will tell him,” she managed.
You will never speak of what happened here to anyone, ever.
“You will.
You were very generous to give it to me and I’ll try to repay the gift, but you don’t get the right to edit anything out, to change it, or to stop me.
“You were right.”
Read the entire text
» Read the rest of this entry «
1984:revisiting – on hold
April 5th, 2014 § 0 comments § permalink
This is how far this project goes for now. Twelve hours have past since the first commit.
And I prefer to freeze the concept instead of freezing the spirits by inducing my colleagues, friends and myself into a risky business of working with illegal material.
Luckily there is someone like Cory Doctorow, who rewrote 1984 for youngsters. He managed to get Little Brother published under a Creative Commons Non-commercial Share Alike, ready to remix.
So today I start a new project with a new repository: 1984:revisited.
But not without making a statement first. » Read the rest of this entry «
1984:revisiting – a gitnovel
April 4th, 2014 § 0 comments § permalink
30 years after the setting of George Orwell’s 1984, the novel is frequently referenced in articles on privacy, data protection and the surveillance society. Search for ‘Big Brother’ in this database f.ex.: http://etraces.constantvzw.org.
The novel was written in 1948, speculating on a totalitarian society that would not allow for any possible resistance.
Do these references to 1984 make sense? And to what extent? That is the question for which this project is a thinking tool. Today there is not one government, not one system. The surveillance society is a fragmented one, Big Brother has such a friendly face we do not organise a big protest after the heroic act of Snowdon, and the human minds seem far too messy to be able to control them. But then there are a lot of similarities too.
This revisiting journal is launched on gitorious today, on 4th April 2014, exactly thirty years after the main character Winston started his journal in Orwell’s novel. The methods for revisiting are inspired by the ideas living at Constant and Variable in Brussels, the experiments with video and archives of Michael Murtaugh, Stéphanie Villayphiou’s Blind Carbon Copy, discussions with members of Algolit and the belief that Kenneth Goldsmith might be right when he states in ‘Uncreative Writing’ that the literary digital revolution is only about to start.
Tot Later 2.0
October 25th, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink
De roman Tot Later, uitgegeven bij De Bezige Bij, werd feestelijk gepresenteerd in Ateliers Mommen op 14 september 2013.
Je vindt het boek in alle boekhandels en kan het ook online kopen.
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Enkele echo’s
“Als er een roman uitkomt waarin Brussel als locatie een belangrijk woordje meespreekt, dan is dat nieuws. Zeker als het om de minder bekende kanten van Brussel gaat, zoals in An Mertens’ doorleefde debuut Tot later.” Michaël Bellon, Brussel Deze Week, 13 september 2013
http://www.brusselnieuws.be/nl/nieuws/mertens-debuteert-met-stadsroman-verhalen-uit-de-buik-van-brussel
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“An Mertens praat op tvbrussel over haar stadsroman ‘Tot later’. Daarin eist Brussel de hoofdrol op.” TV Brussel Avondjournaal, 19 september 2013
http://www.brusselnieuws.be/nl/video/tvbrussel/mertens-over-stadsroman-met-brussel-hoofdrol
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“Héél Brussel? Jawel. Of toch een hele hoop straten en stemmen, twintigers die het leven en de stad ontdekken, zevenkoppige draken en een cafékat. Schrijfster An Mertens vertelt over haar debuutroman ‘Tot later’, hoe ze de vijfhoek in een zeshoek stopt, en waarom ze niet zonder schrijven kan.” Interview met Johan De Smet in king Kong, Fm Brussel, 16 oktober 2013
http://www.fmbrussel.be/artikel/an_stopt_brussel_in_een_boek.aspx
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Weekend Knack, Inzicht, door Peter Van Dyck, 10 september 2013
Hoe de vijfhoek in een zeshoek past
October 22nd, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink
Tijdens een interview op FM Brussel over de roman Tot Later vroeg Johan De Smet of ik een jaar lang met een muur vol post-its had geleefd, want dat hij onder de getuigenissen van de personages een strakke structuur vermoedde. Nee, geen post-its, en ja, wel een strakke structuur. » Read the rest of this entry «
Après avoir cherché le texte
October 18th, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink
During Chercher Le Texte, a conference held in Paris in October, an initiative of ELO (Electronic Literature Organisation), some of the ideas that are (latently) present in the workgroup of Algolit, were described and confirmed. This post is a subjective reading of several conferences I attended, meant as an invitation for discussions and exchanges. » Read the rest of this entry «
