I wrote a program that transforms literary and philosophical texts into patent applications. In short, it reframes texts as inventions or machines. You can view the code on github.
I was partially inspired by Paul Scheerbart’s Perpetual Motion Machine, a sort of technical/literary diary in which Scheerbart documents and reflects on various failed attempts to create a perpetual motion machine. Scheerbart frequently refers to his machines as “stories” – I wanted to reverse the concept and transform stories into machines.
In this post I’ll provide some details about how I wrote the program, and describe some of the tools that I used.
First, here’s some sample output, listed by invention title and source text:
“A method and device for comprehending theoretically the historical movement” (The Communist Manifesto)
“An apparatus and device for staring into vacancy” (The Hunger Artist by Kafka)
“A device and system for belonging to bringing-forth” (The Question Concerning Technology by Heidegger)
- Read the whole thing (and the Python code)
I was partially inspired by Paul Scheerbart’s Perpetual Motion Machine, a sort of technical/literary diary in which Scheerbart documents and reflects on various failed attempts to create a perpetual motion machine. Scheerbart frequently refers to his machines as “stories” – I wanted to reverse the concept and transform stories into machines.
In this post I’ll provide some details about how I wrote the program, and describe some of the tools that I used.
First, here’s some sample output, listed by invention title and source text:
“A method and device for comprehending theoretically the historical movement” (The Communist Manifesto)
“An apparatus and device for staring into vacancy” (The Hunger Artist by Kafka)
“A device and system for belonging to bringing-forth” (The Question Concerning Technology by Heidegger)
- Read the whole thing (and the Python code)
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