Algorithmic Writing Systems

Douglas Edric Stanley

2007.10.22

Several people asked me to post a copy of my talk from the Art-Oriented Programming conference (cf. Art-Oriented Programming++). As I mentioned at the opening of my talk, the conference itself was organized on such short notice that I had to write everything in English. I had originally planned to show a French translation on-screen (hence all all the flying letters) but just ran out of time as I was still writing the talk itself on the train. So this is a very hastily-written document.

I should also mention that during the talk I realized that many of my most important concepts were a little washed-out in the rush. A lot of the vocabulary I used in the talk should have been qualified. I’m thinking specificially about the uses of terms such as “abstraction”, “recursion”, and especially “simulation” which is proposed as an alternative to “representation” (cf. plotseme). This imprecision makes some of the arguments a little difficult to follow, or a little more banal than intended.

Algorithmic Writing Systems link:algorithmic-writing_systems.pdf (pdf)