The IP Poetry project involves the development of a software and hardware system that uses text from the Internet to generate poetry that is then recited in real time by automatons connected to the web.

The different search instructions (for example, all those phrases beginning with the words “dream that I am”) and the recital mode and sequence (one robot at a time per search result, dual recitals, etc.) will dictate the structure and form of each IP poem.

The recitals will be performed at various public venues. Using a proximity sensor, the system detects the presence of an audience and sends a command to the robots to start reciting the poems especially created for each event.

At that point the Internet search begins. The results are sent to the automatons (IP Bots), which convert the search results into the pre-recorded sounds and images of a moving human mouth.

As new text appears on a daily basis on the web, the poems recited maintain their structure,  but the varying search results ensure a poem is never recited in the same way twice.

The IP Poetry project studies the role of poetry and of poets themselves. On the one hand, as far as the construction of the robots is concerned, it highlights the increasing subjectivity of technology, which is endowed with certain artificially enhanced human characteristics (in this case, memory, and the ability to speak and listen). On the other hand, as concerns the resulting poetic structures, it uses the virtual arrangement of the collective human memory found on the Internet to compose poetry that has both mechanical and random elements.

CREDITS

Idea and audiovisual presentation produced and directed by:
Gustavo Romano
www.gustavoromano.com.ar

Programming
Milton Laufer

Acknowledgments
Yuyo Noé, Lidia Blanco, Margarita Paksa, Martín Weber, Carolina Romano, Antonio Franco

FUNDING

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 2006
Award for the Advancement of Research at the international competition Vida 7.0 sponsored by the Telefónica Foundation Spain, 2004
Production support from the Telefónica Foundation, Argentina, 2006
Production support from the MEIAC (Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo) 2007

CHRONICLE
Events and expos where IP Poetry was performed.

A ROBOT POET IN NEW YORK
January 2008
Cervantes Institute, New York, USA.

Interactive net installation for four IP Virtual Bots:
IPPVB-1.0-D.ASTOR
IPPVB-1.0-D.BRAULIO
IPPVB-1.0-D.CEFERINO
IPPVB-1.0-D.DARDO
This exhibit featured some IP poems from the IP Poetry library, as well as a series of poems especially created for this exhibit and presented under the name “A Robot Poet in New York”, based on poems by Federico García Lorca.
A demo was also installed with an English version of the IP Poems “Dream that I am”, “Counterfactual” and “Office and Denunciation”. The public may still submit poetry and view the recitals remotely on line.

"I Dream that I am" (English Demo)

“Office and Denunciation” (English Demo)

“Counterfactual” (English Demo)

ARTIFICIAL MEMORY
April 2007
Cervantes Institute, Beijing, China.
Interactive net exhibit for four IP Virtual Bots:
IPPVB-1.0-D.ASTOR
IPPVB-1.0-D.BRAULIO
IPPVB-1.0-D.CEFERINO
IPPVB-1.0-D.DARDO
This exhibit featured some IP poems from the IP Poetry library, as well as a series of poems especially created for this exhibit and presented under the name “Tao TECH King.” 
A demo was also installed with a Chinese version of the IP Poem “Dream that I am” (我梦见自己是) for the IPPVB-1.0-AOYUN virtual robot.
The public may still submit poetry and view the recitals remotely on line. 

From the poem "I dream that I am"
( 我梦见自己是 )

GUARDIANS OF THE END OF THE WORLD
April 2007
I End of the World Biennial, Ushuaia, Argentina.
Interactive net exhibit for four IPP Bots situated in the Casa Beban plaza, on the shores of the Beagle Canal.
IPPB-1.1-D.ARTHUR
IPPB-1.1-D.BORIS
IPPB-1.1-D.CHARLIE
IPPB-1.1-D.DANTE
The poems at this exhibit alluded to the ends of the known world and to the imaginary ones that lay beyond. Like the “keepers of the end of the world” in the movie Heart of Glass by Herzog, the sole function of the poet robots, situated on the water’s edge on the planet’s southernmost inhabited outpost, was to watch for and warn the world of the coming “unknown”.
The public was able to create its own IP poems through the website, which were then recited at the Ushuaia exhibit and seen via Internet around the world. 

From the poem "Tienes miedo a algo"

Firsts tests

The robots IPPB 1.1D working

THE INSTALLATION

BACKSTAGE

LOCAL ACCESS TO VIRTUAL ROBOTS
The poems stored in the IP Poetry library may be accessed at any time (whether or not the physical robots are performing) and recited by virtual robots.

IP POETRY LOCAL>

IPPVB2.0-ASTOR	IPPVB2.0-BRAULIO	IPPVB2.0-CEFERINO	IPPVB2.0-DARDO

IP POETRY "ONLY TEXT" VIEWER (NEW)

In this section you can read a selection of poems on text format, created in real time, folowing the same rules as in the performances. Reloading the pages the content of each poem will change.
(go to "text only" version >)