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• 1 media/23753065302_26da63dc0e_b.jpg media/twitter_screen_social_phone_cellular_phone_technology_editorial_illustrative-1028513.jpg!d.jpg 2020-01-03T19:36:48-08:00 Richard Snyder's Case 14 image_header 2020-01-06T17:03:58-08:00 Richard Snyder
  Doctoral Candidate (Literary Studies)
  Department of English, Washington State University
  Email: richard.snyder@wsu.edu
  Website: RDSnyder.info
  
  “Ovalbot Alpha” Artist Statement
  
  This Python project was inspired by combinatory poems such as Stochastic Texts by Theo Lutz and Taroko Gorge by Nick Montfort, which use algorithms and random selection in order to output poetry which is different each time it is read. Ovalbot is a combinatory advice bot which lives on Twitter and may be found at the URL above. Given the current occupant of the White House’s apparent unfamiliarity with or disregard for many of the formal and informal procedures and considerations of that office, Ovalbot seeks to harness the voices of past Presidents of the United States in order to give the current President some guidance. This is a somewhat playful enterprise, to be sure, but it also seeks to provide a serious commentary on the decorum and deep rhetorical responsibilities of the office. The guidance provided by Ovalbot comes in the form of past Presidents’ own words, taken from many of their most famous speeches, such as the Gettysburg Address (Bliss copy), JFK’s Inaugural speech, and Lyndon B. Johnson’s speech on voting rights. The bot works by first acquiring President Trump’s latest tweet, and splitting it into individual characters. Its main algorithm then uses that set of character as a key upon which to base its selection of words taken from past presidential speeches as outlined above, piecing them together in a format which simulates advice or truisms, and randomizing sentence structure to allow for modifying each noun with adjectives or tying the statements together with conjunctions. Here are a few samples of the statements that it has produced:
  • “selfish offices render callous public voices”
  • “freedoms influence evanescent men”
  • “great suffrages carry convictions”
  • “virtues appear to me arduous inclinations”
  • “powers lead to sacrifices”
              Producing and launching such a project required deepening my knowledge of Python and algorithmic processes, making well-informed curatorial choices about source material, and learning how to build, authorize, and host a Twitter bot. This was a lot to accomplish over the course of only a few weeks for someone with minimal programming experience, so the project is imperfect. Ovalbot is not automated at the moment—it runs only when I prompt it to do so. The code is also not optimized and many of the passages end prematurely, a problem which I intend to fix when I rewrite the bot in Javascript in 2020. That said, I am very happy with its current state, given my time and resources, and it was a rich and wonderful learning experience to build Ovalbot 1.0. You will find a few samples of the Python code below.