DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly Volume 7 Number 3 Preview  | 
XML |  Discuss ( Comments )   Robert
Schoenbeck <rschoenb_at_uci_dot_edu>, University of California,
Irvine   Randomly generated content poses problems for theories
of digital art: such content is resistant to structural
theories, which can only provide templates, and one cannot
assume a shared text for close analysis. Instead of reaching
fixed endings, such works also tend to be of indefinite length
or at least suggest indefinite possible combinations. I argue
that the impact of such works can instead be found in how one
attempts to work through their underlying grammar, based on
limits in the algorithms that generate the content — not those
limits themselves, but how their outlines come to be known.
Repetitively iterating through these works simultaneously
upholds the chance nature of the epiphenomenal occurrences while
also illustrating the sameness of the underlying algorithm over
time, creating a future-oriented interpretive arc. I examine t