SASHA STILES

AI CO-AUTHOR​SHIP

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Four modes of Authorial Imagination synthesize and expand Stiles’ work at the forefront of creative AI:

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1) AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL INTELLIGENCE

​Poem texts are generated via personalized AI models fine-tuned and prompted on aspects of Stiles’ cultural heritage and family memories -- part of a larger effort to decipher and encode the dying Kalmyk-Mongolian dialect and preserve ancestral wisdom.

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2) AUGMENTED INVOCATION

​Stiles’ analog spoken word readings are merged with a polyphonic chorus of AI voice clones trained by Stiles on personal recordings and other sources, exploring Technelegy’s extension as a chameleonic, performative alter ego.

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3) AURAL IMMERSION

​Original music composed in collaboration with Kris Bones uses digitally-powered sound design and generative music production to unearth primal emotion, allowing us to say and hear the otherwise unspeakable.

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4) ALGORITHMIC ILLUMINATION

​Generative tools alchemize poetry into wordless language and material metaphor – from text-to-image programs that translate verse into illustrations, to the inscription of poetry on dynamic palimpsests of digitally handcrafted paper.

THE TITLE

 

In addition to evoking T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” (the great meditation on time, spirituality and our place in the universe) and the musicality of verse, FOUR CORE TEXTS nods to the role of Core Text(s) in training data, computing and cultural canon, as well as to the cerebral cortex as seat of consciousness, memory and emotion -- the higher functions that make us “human.”

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THE TRANSLATIONS

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The collection shifts between English and Mongolian, a language associated with oral tradition and folklore, nomadism and portability. As the Kalmyk dialect spoken by members of Stiles’ family is highly endangered, it is not available via contemporary translation tools. Therefore, FOUR CORE TEXTS uses standard Mongolian alongside research and input from Stiles’ mother, Erna Akuginow, and marks the start of a long-term effort to cultivate bespoke Kalmyk tools. Inherent mistranslations suggest the promise and peril in relying on technology to foster human connection as we attempt to cross linguistic divides, generational and otherwise.

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THE VOICES AND MUSIC

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Produced in collaboration with musical veteran Kris Bones, and developed to be premiered with Bang & Olufsen, FOUR CORE TEXTS is an ode to oral tradition as a pivotal technology that enabled humans to preserve and transmit stories long before the advent of written language. The collection is an anthem of the viscerality of voice in a technological culture dominated by the visual and virtual -- a “book” to be heard and felt as much as read or seen.

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To perform the poems, Stiles merges her analog spoken word with a polyphony of AI voice clones trained on public sources and personal recordings -- exploding her AI alter ego Technelegy into a Greek (Kalmyk?) chorus of cybernetic interpreters whose accents, timbres, cadences and inflections are shaped by training data as well as formal cues (punctuation, text formatting, blank spaces, etc) -- text as libretto or score.

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The collection employs aural elements like ASMR, distortion, deep bass rumbles and the sweeping expanse of Dolby Atmos as poetic devices in their own right. Sonic landscapes offer exciting possibilities for immersive readership, and draw attention to how sound and rhythm -- like the coded patterns of machine speak -- unlock wordless emotion, equipping us to understand the otherwise unspeakable.

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THE VISUALS

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Building on fonts, colors, motifs and techniques from Stiles’ media-rich visual poetry practice, the collection engages a mix of analog and generative tools to alchemize poetry into wordless language -- weaving legible literature with elements forged via text-to-image tools. Individual pages are crafted from digitally handmade papers, inks and textures, and illuminated by “translating” natural language into illustration. Key lines are highlighted as generative metaphors -- e.g., an old book becomes “moth wings from another world,” in both word and image. Intricate digital collage and layers upon layers of motion graphics yield dynamic palimpsests. Each poem is a one-of-a-kind book unto itself, nodding to the golden age of rare tomes, bespoke manuscripts, and the sacred space of the personal library.