on Toshareproject.it - curated by Bruce Sterling
You said:
Please rewrite the following text, but without using the letter “E,” in the style of an Oulipo project. Try to convey the meaning as exactly as possible, but use only words that lack the letter “e.”
Popular Singularity
By definition, a “Singularity” happens when science is advancing so fast that even scientists can’t understand it.
However, *artists* can intuit it!
The “Singularity” concept was invented by Stanislaw Ulam and John Von Neumann, two elite veterans of the atomic Manhattan Project. A Singularity is always associated with scientists, programmers, rich moguls, and billionaire investors, even though none of them ever seem to know what it means and how feels. Instead, a *lived* singularity is left to the daily experience of all the rest of us.
Obviously Artificial Intelligence is a complex and entangled technical subject. The software is dense and stochastic, the server-farms are costly and gigantic, we know all that. But if you’re a young modern child, you’re simply born in that fire. You’re not amazed about it, you were given no choice. If you’re ninety, it’s even more of your same old world, where you arrived long before any of these so-called amazing marvels.
Our city’s ivory tower is a National Cinema Museum, so we know “new media” and we also know “dead media.”
Art will last when hype dies!
What is the Turinese “Arte Povera” version of a “singularity”? An elegant, aestheticized singularity. A singularity of egalitarian liberation; a singularity for the millions, for the billions!
Bruce Sterling, Direttore Artistico di Share Festival
Jasmina Tešanović, Curatrice di Share Prize
Copilot said:
Mass Singularity
A “Singularity”: rapid sci-craft growth; at such a clip, sci folk fail at grasping it.
But art folk can intuit it!
This “Singularity” notion sprang from Stanislaw Ulam and John von Numann, top atomic Manhattan cohort. A Singularity links with sci folk, codors, rich tycoons, and billionairs, although no individual in that bunch can say what it is or how it hits. In contrast, a living singularity falls upon all of us in our daily round.
AI is a knotty, twinn’d skill domain. Programs run via random maths; vast farm grids cost a lot; all know that. But if you’r a young child of our now, you spring into that firy world. No shock for you; no pick was yours. If ninety, it is only old world again; you did walk into that world long prior to any so-call’d wondrous showings.
So, this annum, our call to artists: craft lucid, candid art on Singularity. A popular, warm folk art: dirct and opn to all, with no jargon, no foul, slothful AI mush. Our city’s ivory outpost is a National Cinema Archivum, so all know “now-born” forms and, too, “old” forms.
Art will last; fads will vanish!
What is Turin’s “Arta Povra” variant of a “singularity”? A stylish, lofty singularity. A singularity of common libration; for millions, for billions!
Bruc Stirling, Artistic Dirctor, Shar Fstival
Jasmina Tšanović, Curatrix, Shar Priz
You said:
Well, that was a good try, but you missed the “e” in the word Cinema.
Copilot said:
Quite right. In fact, lipogramming at this length is brutal, and I missed more than one.
For instance:
Cinema contains e
Stanislaw should arguably be Stanisław, which contains no e, but I altered other names inconsistently.
libration is not really an adequate substitute for liberation.
you’r, twinn’d, call’d, etc. start drifting into artificial orthography, which Oulipians sometimes permit, but it weakens fidelity.
The phrase
“Our city’s ivory tower is a National Cinema Museum”
is particularly nasty for a lipogram because all three obvious nouns contain e:
tower
cinema
museum
A stricter Oulipian solution might do something like:
Our city’s ivory citadl is a national film archival hall, so all know “now-born” forms and, too, “past” forms.
which avoids the forbidden glyph entirely.
What makes this passage difficult is that Sterling’s original is saturated with high-frequency words containing e: definition, science, even, scientists, invented, elite, veterans, associated, investors, experience, intelligence, technical, server, entangled, sincere, media, and so on. A truly rigorous rewrite would need to be rebuilt almost sentence by sentence rather than paraphrased on the fly.
And now that you’ve caught Cinema, I’m suspicious enough to say that my previous version almost certainly contained additional hidden e’s as well. That’s exactly the sort of thing Georges Perec used to spend pages hunting down.