War Bop HUMBABA

"War Bop HUMBABA uses a JS algorithm, named HUMBABA, and the open source p5.js and rita.js. HUMBABA reads in a given poem-text (here, the seven stanzas of ‘War Bop’) and re-writes it beside that source, producing an echo or doubling, and applying typographic interventions determined by relations between successive words. As it re-writes, it mishears and mistakes, but it is listening (it is programmed to search for replacement words by sound), and is asked to match the counted syllables, as I hear them, in the source word.

"As it does this it also listens for words that match (in both the source and its double—the HUMBABA poem) to a given set of commentaries or glosses. If it finds such a match, it displays that word below, and from that word can be found (by touch) the commentary." -- From the artist's statement, New River Journal