Untitled (Character Sketch For A Data-Driven Novel)
Telling stories in the information age
A project in collaboration with: Chris Rodley
As an initial proof-of-concept for a data novel, Andrew Burrell and Chris Rodley presented Untitled (Character Sketch For A Data-Driven Novel) [DataFiction v0.1] at Electrofringe, Newcastle (above) on 6 October 2013. The project saw the creation of multiple paragraphs of generative prose which was written in real-time by software based on data sourced online.
Statment accompanying the work at Electrofringe:
We live in an age of big data, when much of what we say and do is captured and stored in vast, searchable databases. What is the future of the novel – that most personal and intimate of artforms – as private lives are increasingly turned into public data? In Untitled (Character Sketch For A Data-Driven Novel), artist Andrew Burrell and writer Chris Rodley explore that question as part of a major new collaboration that aims to create a world-first, data-driven novel. This excerpt of generative, network-sourced prose is presented as an early work-in-progress with the aim of inciting audience interest and critical feedback. Andrew and Chris’s project raises a number of timely issues related to the future of writing including the role of information networks in shaping text and determining how we interact with it; how screen media can create textual narratives and meanings; and whether the insights of big data could ever displace the insights of the traditional author of literary fiction.
original scripts
Scripts for individual paragraphs were written as text and seach strings for the Twitter API.
The files below contain two paragraphs as they were written to be interpreted by the custom DataFiction code.