on Toshareproject.it - curated by Bruce Sterling
*Maybe I’ll get the thing built, somehow!
https://re-creative.ca/the-versifier/
Joe and Mark are joined by the famed cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling, from his studio in Torino (Turin), Italy.
Bruce describes himself as is a ‘diaspora kid’ and currently splits his time living in Austin, Belgrade, Torino and Ibiza.
“I don’t like doing the same thing over. So, I don’t write trilogies or sequels. I’m writing a lot of short fiction. I do some lecturing and consulting. I’m also the art director of an arts festival here in Turin, which is called Share Festival.”
The Share Festival is a technology arts festival in Turin, one of the most heavily visited cities in Italy.
One of their projects is to re-create a working model of The Versifier, which was originally a 1959 short story by Primo Levi. In the story, a poet is offered the chance to produce more poetry faster with a machine AI. “Then in 1971 it became an episode on an Italian TV,” Bruce says.
“It’s probably the most prophetic object that Italian science fiction has every produced.”
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