Gods and Mathematicians

Gods and Mathematicians' is an endless generative, interactive poem developed in Max/MSP as an experiment in surrealism and language development. Built by concatenating over a 100 text files, the poem juxtaposes often-ridiculous and over-the-top imagery with grammatical structures that are meant to evoke humorous, satirical responses and at the same time, encourage thinking outside of conventional norms of what is considered poetry.

Taking on a deeply apocalyptic tone, the poem talks about conflict and how it often stays unresolved owing to inter-personal conflicts or lack of understanding between two different sides.

Broken into two halves, the poem simulates a dialog of sorts between 'gods' and 'mathematicians'. The left side of the poem puts forth the idea that all things are already pre-destined and pre-ordained even though it might be full of conflicts and problematic occurrences. It takes on a more idealistic perception of the world as we know it.

On the other hand, the right-hand side takes on a more 'human' perspective on life, full of biases, anger and pride. It has a very self-centred approach to the world. Yet, the right side somehow feels confused about what it really wants, sometimes even going to the point of ridiculing and mocking the notion of 'benevolent forces'.

What results is a confusing hodge-podge of phrases, words and sentences that more often than not, make a lot of sense about the world we live in, the different perspectives we have and what happens when opposing ideas clash with each other.