A computer assisted analysis of literary text: from feature analysis to judgements of literary merit

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire in ful lment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyUsing some of the tools developed mainly for authorship authentication, this study develops a toolbox of techniques towards enabling computers to detect aesthetic qualities in literature. The literature review suggests that the style markers that indicate a particular author may be adapted to show literary style that constitutes a "good" book. An initial experiment was carried out to see to what extent the computer can identify specific literary features both before and after undergoing a "corruption" of text by translating and re-translating the texts. Preliminary results were encouraging, with up to 90 per cent of the literary features being identifi ed, suggesting that literary characteristics are robust and quanti fiable. An investigation is carried out into current and historic literary criticism to determine how the texts can be classified as "good literature". Focus groups, interviews and surveys are used to pinpoint the elements of literariness as experienced by human readers that identify a text as "good". Initially identified by human experts, these elements are confirmed by the reading public. Using Classics as a genre, 100 mainly fiction texts are taken from the Gutenberg Project and ranked according to download counts from the Gutenberg website, an indicator of literary merit (Ashok et al., 2013). The texts are equally divided into five grades: four according to the download rankings and one of non- fiction texts. From these, factor analysis and mean averages determine the metrics that determine the literary quality. The metrics are qualified by a model named CoBAALT (computer-based aesthetic analysis of literary texts). CoBAALT assesses texts by Jane Austen and D. H. Lawrence and determines the degree to which they conform to the metrics for literary quality; the results demonstrate conformity with peer reviewed literary criticism

FinBook: literary content as digital commodity

This short essay explains the significance of the FinBook intervention, and invites the reader to participate. We have associated each chapter within this book with a financial robot (FinBot), and created a market whereby book content will be traded with financial securities. As human labour increasingly consists of unstable and uncertain work practices and as algorithms replace people on the virtual trading floors of the worlds markets, we see members of society taking advantage of FinBots to invest and make extra funds. Bots of all kinds are making financial decisions for us, searching online on our behalf to help us invest, to consume products and services. Our contribution to this compilation is to turn the collection of chapters in this book into a dynamic investment portfolio, and thereby play out what might happen to the process of buying and consuming literature in the not-so-distant future. By attaching identities (through QR codes) to each chapter, we create a market in which the chapter can ‘perform’. Our FinBots will trade based on features extracted from the authors’ words in this book: the political, ethical and cultural values embedded in the work, and the extent to which the FinBots share authors’ concerns; and the performance of chapters amongst those human and non-human actors that make up the market, and readership. In short, the FinBook model turns our work and the work of our co-authors into an investment portfolio, mediated by the market and the attention of readers. By creating a digital economy specifically around the content of online texts, our chapter and the FinBook platform aims to challenge the reader to consider how their personal values align them with individual articles, and how these become contested as they perform different value judgements about the financial performance of each chapter and the book as a whole. At the same time, by introducing ‘autonomous’ trading bots, we also explore the different ‘network’ affordances that differ between paper based books that’s scarcity is developed through analogue form, and digital forms of books whose uniqueness is reached through encryption. We thereby speak to wider questions about the conditions of an aggressive market in which algorithms subject cultural and intellectual items – books – to economic parameters, and the increasing ubiquity of data bots as actors in our social, political, economic and cultural lives. We understand that our marketization of literature may be an uncomfortable juxtaposition against the conventionally-imagined way a book is created, enjoyed and shared: it is intended to be

Artists Re:Thinking the Blockchain

This book is the result a 12 month research process, in which editors commissioned new works and sought out a range of active international practitioners addressing the question: what does the blockchain mean to art? and how can artists shape and intervene in this emerging technology? Contributions from a range of world-leading and emerging voices in the fields of blockchain theory and art practice were newly commissioned by editors and developed in conversations held at Furtherfield gallery in London during 2016 and 2017. It is the first book of its kind, addressing the meaning of nascent blockchain technologies to art production and dissemination. Continuing Torque Edition's commitment to hybridity in their published editions, the book's thirty chapters are split into three sections: "Documents" presents a range of extant landmark artworks and events; "Fictions" presents newly commissioned creative text and image works; and "Theories" which opens with a essay by Hito Steyerl, includes a number of original essays addressing how blockchain is, and can be, used and thought. The book's release was accompanied by a newly commissioned digital portal developed by Design Informatics at Edinburgh University: using the unique "Finbook" portal, readers can interact with Financial bots based on chapters within the book as they "trade themselves". In their introduction to the book (c. 5000 words) Jones and Skinner place a focus on the "janus faced" quality of the blockchain, as a speculative tool with liberating potential, and an already hyper-financialised entity. They frame the book's unique importance as presenting an alternative range of discourse around the blockchain -- outside of from Fin-tech disciplines -- and express an intention that the contents of the book will open the way for newer and more progressive uses of this technology. This purpose has been widely referenced and acknowledged in reviews and profiles of the book. The book is on its third printed edition, and has been released as a free PDF available on the Torque Editions website. It has been reviewed and profiled in a number of specialist industry and public journals and magazines, including Art Review, Art Monthly, Hyperallergic, We Make Money Not Art, Rhizome and the 2P2Foundation. Further impact for the project includes launch events and invited talks at ArtReview in London, Foundation for Art and Creative Technology in Liverpool, Transmediale in Berlin and Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam, each of which Jones has prepared new material for. It was funded by the European Union via the State Machines project, The Culture Capital Exchange, and Arts Council England