The document discusses the relationship between rules and emergent patterns/products in computer programming and digital art. It notes that programs like 10 PRINT and Conway's Game of Life demonstrate how finite rules can generate infinite patterns, and how digital art is similarly created through algorithms. The document then asks how these concepts might be applied to studying real art and literature using computers, suggesting we can view such works as patterns generated by underlying rules, and that text too has been shown to follow probabilistic patterns. It proposes experimenting with generating text in this way.

1. PHP 3
Prof. Alvarado
MDST 3705
31 January 2013

2. Business
• Course Schedule posted
– Include project days in April that may be used
for more content, depending on progress

3. Review
• Hackers = builders
– Coders and Painters are both hackers
– Building is a way of knowing (praxis)
– Coders and Painters have different skills
• Hacking involves awareness of two levels
– LEVEL 1: Rules, methods, techniques
– LEVEL 2: Effects, emergence, products
– The two levels interact
– The two levels are in tension

4. Programs like 10 PRINT and Conway’s
Game of Life exemplify the difference
and relationship between levels

7. Finite Rules
Infinite Patterns

8. Digital art is
created by algorithms
like these

9. What happens when we want to study
“real” art and literature?
How can we use the computer to help
in the task of interpretation?
(The digital humanities is about
interpreting the art, literature, and other
products of human intellectual labor)

10. We can view works of art and literature as
patterns generated by rules

13. What about text?

14. Claude Shannon
showed that English
is governed by
probabilities
It is possible to
generate sentences
that almost make
sense, using a
random generator,
like the 10 PRINT
program, governed
by probabilities for
each letter or word

15. Let’s experiment …