A House of Dust

Alison Knowles James Tenney

1967

Prose/Poetry (Computer-Generated)

Unfolded 240"x14.75"
In original plastic envelope, titles screenprinted on front.

Highlights The Library Cybernetic Serendipity Female Pioneer The Ragnar 100

Description

A House of Dust (1967) is Alison Knowles’s pioneering computer work of generative poetry. The work demonstrates that early computer art was not just about creating images, but also about generating ideas and experiences.

Knowles, with the help of Bell Lab’s scientist James Tenney, wrote a program that assembled quatrains of sentences according to a set of rules. First, the phrase “a house of” followed by a random material of manufacture. Next, a location. Third, a light source. And finally, the inhabitants.

Knowles then generated over 10,0000 different quatrains, tearing off around 20 pages at a time from the output, creating a series of 500 unique “books” of generative computer poetry. The work is perhaps the first true artistic vision realized by a computer and a poet.

This unique copy is signed and dedicated to Kalus Groh, a pioneer of the Fluxus movement.