Artistic and Literary Bots

Abstract

A bot is a software robot. Frequently personified or embodying concepts, animals, or things, bots operate autonomously in digital networked environments. While most bots are used for practical purposes, such as gathering, analyzing, and storing data, producing messages, interacting with users, political activism, or carrying out other actions, bots are also frequently used for artistic and literary goals. Bots are among the oldest genres of electronic literature, but for decades this development occurred along a single primary subgenre: chatterbots. In recent years-and thanks to social media networks that serve as platforms for data collection, interaction, and publication-bots have seen exponential growth in numbers, complexity, subgenres, and popularity. This chapter will discuss bots that produce output of interest from a literary and e-literary perspective. For the purposes of this chapter I will define literature broadly as a language-based art which has traditionally taken form as drama, narrative, and poetry. An e-literary perspective focuses attention on how a language-based creative work engages and is made possible by digital media technologies, resulting in an extension and re-examination of literary practices. Some of the genres of electronic literature related to bots are computer-generated literature, text adventure games (Interactive Fiction, MUDs, MOOs), and e-poetry. This chapter will provide a historical overview of its development, practices, and communities, concluding with recent attempts to formulate poetics, theories, and taxonomies.