Storyland
Storyland (version 2) is a randomly created narrative which plays with social stereotypes and elements of popular culture. Each sentence is constructed from a pool of possibilities, allowing each reader a unique story. The reader presses the "new story" button, and a story is created for that moment in time. It is unlikely that any two stories will be identical. Storyland exposes its narrative formula thus mirroring aspects of contemporary cultural production: sampling, appropriation, hybrids, stock content, design templates. It risks discontinuity and the ridiculous while providing opportunities for contemplation beyond the entertainment factor.
The computer-generated combinatorial story is one of the oldest forms of digital writing. Storyland, with its simple circus frame, plays with this tradition by performing recombination of the sort seen in cut-up and in Oulipian work. The system repeatedly plots amusingly repetitive stories, inviting the reader to consider, to read its scheme for composition.
(Source: Author description, Electronic Literature Collection, Vol. One).
A long long time ago, a media mogul pondered the universe. The media mogul behaved mindlessly.
To hear the sound, turn on the computer's speakers or plug in headphones. Read the generated story. Click "new story," which appears in the lower right, to start generating a new one.
Teaching Resource that references this work:
| Resource | Author | Teaching Resource Type | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Digital Genres: Digital Art, Electronic Literature, and Computer Games (DIKULT 103, Spring 2012) | Davin Heckman, Patricia Tomaszek | Syllabus | 2012 |
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