◯🖌️

A pond and a frog
Are one
A pond and a frog and a sound
Are nothing

My own plan will probably be to work on tiny projects in e.g. BASIC, 6502 assembly, Perl, Python, andor projects that relate to the reimplementation of symbolic storytelling systems from the past 60 years

Computational Writing 2026 Explore the intersection of computing and literary art, not only by using pre-developed tools but also by directly undertaking programming.

Deadline extended to March 25!

Come join us at this nonprofit nexus of creativity, in a program unaffiliated with any AI company, to work with language & computing.

Projects in English, French, & Spanish welcome

www.banffcentre.ca/programs/lit...

Output The discussion of computer-generated text has recently reached a fever pitch but largely omits the long history of work in this area—text generation, as it...

On NLG specifically, I of course hope the book @lillianyvonne.bsky.social & I put together is helpful

mitpress.mit.edu/978026254981...

I also have an article about the project overall (this book and the website and museum installation manifestations)

nickm.com/articles/Mon...

Patsy Baudoin & Nick Montfort “Rubrique Technologie / Tech section” RRose Editions, 2026 Edition of 200 copies. Bilingual French / English. 184 pages. 12 x 19 cm. Printed on Munken Print Cream 80g + 300g. ISBN : 978-2-9586199-9-2 « Rubrique Technologie / Tech Section ...

Published today, with US sales through Printer Matter

rrose-editions.com/portfolio/pa...

www.printedmatter.org/catalog/70507

Computational Writing 2026 Explore the intersection of computing and literary art, not only by using pre-developed tools but also by directly undertaking programming.

Deadline to apply is March 11! Come to this self-directed September residency at Banff w/ me, @lillianyvonne.bsky.social & Kalen Iwamoto

www.banffcentre.ca/programs/lit...

I'm one of five who has each written briefly on this topic for LARB

lareviewofbooks.org/article/artificial-intel...

Hands holding a copy of "Output: An Anthology of Computer-Generated Text 1953 - 2023" edited by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Montfort on a plain background.

Open pages of "Output" on a plain background. The left page reads: i've never picked a protected flower Everest Pipkin, 2018 A paragraph of text is included over an image of a Unicode poem. The right page features an image of another Unicode poem.

We often think of computers as numerical devices, but part of the history of computing is also found in how computers manipulate language. "Output" showcases seven decades of English-language machine-generated texts, long predating ChatGPT: mitpress.mit.edu/978026254981... @docmofo.bsky.social

I contributed curatorial text about the shell script :(){ :|:&};:

Organizers of the exhibit

The first hall has posters focusing on history & society

At UNESCO World Headquarters in Paris, the Source Code exhibition features 15 influential items — including a 12-byte bash script by security researcher lcamtuf & a forgotten contributor

The Word-Unit Palindrome (repeats by word, not character) that
@docmofo.bsky.social
nominated for my 2012 Ymmy — now animated.

#algorithmicArt #WordUnitPalindrome

Computational Writing 2026 Explore the intersection of computing and literary art, not only by using pre-developed tools but also by directly undertaking programming.

Apply before March 11 for this AMAZING* residency at Canada’s Banff Centre, where @derekbeaulieu.bsky.social is director of literary arts!

* I’m biased, but — @lillianyvonne.bsky.social and I were at the first one; Kalen Iwamoto’s work is awesome

www.banffcentre.ca/programs/lit...

Pipe-like, tube-like Unicode characters in different colors & in a grid

Pipe-like, tube-like Unicode characters in different colors & in a grid

Pipe-like, tube-like Unicode characters in different colors & in a grid

Enjoy my screensaver-like artwork “A Series of Tubes” nickm.com/poems/tubes....

More info on this is at the PIKSEL25 site. It will be in this festival that starts tomorrow 25.piksel.no/projects/a-s...

Call for Books 2026 — Dead Alive Press Dead Alive Press seeks experimental books, electronic literature, art objects, and cross-genre works for 2026 publication. Open until November 2026.

Dead Alive seeks innovative manuscripts (including, no doubt, computer-generated ones) to publish in 2026

www.deadalivemagazine.com/calls/call-f...

This year I won’t make it! Hope it is great for all, though

Orphée, Cocteau

Throne of Blood, Kurosawa

I must go east or west, but I cannot decide

Can You Code With Pictures? Esoteric Languages Challenge How We Code Esoteric languages spark creativity by challenging conventional coding. Daniel Temkin is writing codes to confront the lack of creativity in AI code.

Daniel Temkin’s book Forty-Four Esolangs, coming from the MIT Press on Sep 23 in the Hardcopy series, is reviewed & @dtemkin.bsky.social himself is interviewed in IEEE Spectrum

spectrum.ieee.org/esoteric-pro...

www.jstor.org/stable/42945...

Start Me Up

A teaser trailer for START ME UP, a short film by Albert Figurt & Nick Montfort (that’s me), is now online

nickm.com/collab/figur...

Room full of people in a video game arcade space; we’ve pulled up the screen where START ME UP was shown and are projecting Albert and Henry on the well behind during the Q&A session

Awesome time at WordHack in #NYC last night, where we premiered our film START ME UP to a sold-out Wonderville!

Thanks (and CONGRATULATIONS!) to Todd Anderson, founder & host of WordHack, and thanks to director Albert Figurt and star Henry Jenkins for joining us via video for a Q&A

happy to be in this wonderful anthology of coded poetry edited by @docmofo.bsky.social

Start Me Up

My & Albert Figurt’s short film START ME UP will have its world premiere on August 21, 2025 at 7pm at WordHack, Wonderville, in the Brooklyn part of #NYC

nickm.com/collab/figur...

I placed this text in a file named “o” (lowercase letter o). Any guesses as to why?

w () { s=($1); echo -n ${s[$RANDOM%5]}; }
s () { echo -n "$1 "; }
w "old still dim calm wide"; s; w "pond tree log cave fen"; echo; \
s "frog"; w "jumps swims looks drops flicks"; s; w "in out past up off"; \
echo; w "splish drip glint hum sob"; echo;

Screenshot of Cayley’s poem: " generating ceasing regular world reading last constantly for reading constantly math of last what if being recognit- -s life breathing recognitions thinking generating saying sa- here to saying regular ceasing word here moving the retur- -nent the ceasing memory images what being here constan- generating recognitions being what expressing thoughts m- -turn life being what thoughts random imagining return be "

John Cayley stages his The code is saying[.js] for the Web

programmatology.com/apps/saying/

Originally presented in print in RUN RUN RUN

badquar.to/publications...

Run Run Run A zine with short text-generating computer programs and their outputs.

Bad Quarto is pleased to present a new artistic & poetic booklet with short programs and their output

badquar.to/publications...

At the #NYC Swiss Institute last Saturday, a great performance by @l-a-n-g-u-a-g-e.bsky.social & davidebalula.com documented a bit although not captured in this nice article in Jacket2 — with some product placement for the OUTPUT anthology!

jacket2.org/commentary/A...

A new OA article, this one in Global Hip Hop Studies. I discuss hip hop visions of the future, with a strong focus on two albums from 2000 & their lyrical content

www.doi.org/10.1386/ghhs...

frag Generate a text by using a Markov process on a specified file

Just finished an @elo2025.bsky.social workshop using codeberg.org/nickmontfort... — a *very* short program to not only explain some about Markov chain generation, but also to allow people to use different documents for generation, try different parameters, and make modifications to the code.