Poetics of Synthetic Language

This riso-printed anthology explores the poetics of generative language through the lens of those who are navigating this stran­ge landscape. 

Over six months of conversation and a site visit to engage with Milan's publi­shing industry, nine artists, reflecting a wide range of disciplines and areas of interest, generated the following as a form of polyphonic response. 

This collection comes out of a mo­ment when works of artificial lan­guage, or commentaries on works of artificial language, are seemingly everywhere. 

We entered into this hoping to extend the conversation beyond training pro­cesses or the quality of outputs into a future saturated with machine-gene­rated speech. What are the implica­tions of the commodification of lan­guage as a material? 

This anthology posits verbal art in the digital age as a craft contending with a new intermediary, akin to a sculptor's chisel or a musician's tabla.

This inter­mediary - generative Al - both fa­cilitates and confines artistic expres­sion.

Poetics traditionally focuses on the elements that shape a piece of writing. While hermeneutics seeks to unravel the "meaning" behind texts, poetics is dedicated to understan­ding the compositional elements that give literature its form and essence. This investigation is complicated by different schools of thought, from the structuralists' belief in a systematic approach to Mikhail Bakhtin's vision of a dynamic, evolving literary process characterized by dialogism and heteroglossia. 

The advent of LLMs introduces so­mething new and strange, presenting both challenges and opportunities for the art of writing. This residen­cy served as a platform for dialogue and creation, inviting participants to explore how these models reshape literary (and non-literary) expression. The pieces question the extent to which automated systems can em­body alternative values, can liberate from constraining contexts, or can unveil new connotations. Does the emergence of LLMs hinder the per­petual evolution of language, or does it suggest a new domain for literary genres and forms to flourish? 

These questions are not just theoreti­cal musings but demand a conscien­tious engagement with the material and moral landscapes that underpin these platforms, traditionally oriented towards efficiency and growth. 

"Poetics of Synthetic Language" is not just a collection of artistic expressions (it is that, though) but prototypes of potential futures for literary creation in the age of artificial intelligence. They interrogate the potential shapes that generative language might take, mirroring the versatility of plastic yet seeking a form that somehow resonates with the organic flow of human experience.

This collection is an invi­tation to wander, to engage with texts directly or obliquely, and to partake in a dialogue that blurs the lines betwe­en creator and creation, between lan­guage born of human experience and that generated from silicon and things already written. 

Project: UKAI Projects 

Contributions: 
Leslie Predy 
Luisa JI 
Jerrold McGrath 
Katie Sullivan 
Bianca Weeko Martin
JC Fung 
Helen Lam 
Gurpreet Surman
Darian Razdar 

Graphic Design: Mida Fiore 
Printing: Press Press Milano 
Support: Canada Council for the Arts

Poetics of Synthetic Language was a multi-month research residency for cultural producers exploring the poetics of large language models and synthetic language generally. The paths explored during this time are documented and shared in this publication at the conclusion of the residency. 

UKAI Projects conducts artistic research and prototypes culture for the future. Emphasizing polyphony, it encourages individuals to assemble their own meanings from the world around them. Avoiding polarization, UKAI Projects demonstrates that emerging technologies can be repurposed to support the evolving cultures necessary for the future.