“This is the patent age of new inventions for killing bodies, and for saving souls. All propagated with the best intentions.”*…
From Paul Scheerbart’s Perpetual Motion Machine
Sam Lavigne has created the ultimate tool for this, the Age of Intellectual Property: 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…
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)
One can read the details– and try it for oneself– at “Transform any text into a patent application.”
* Lord Byron
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As we ponder the protection of “property” that isn’t even ours, we might recall that it was on this date in 1903 that what was likely the first instance of electronic hacking took place. During a demonstration by Marconi of his wireless communications system at the Royal Institution in London, one of Marconi’s rivals, the magician and inventor Nevil Maskelyne intervened. As physicist John Ambrose Fleming was preparing to give the public their first demonstration of “radio,” Marconi was at his clifftop radio station in Poldhu, Cornwall, 300 miles away, preparing to send a Morse code signal. Though the audience was unaware of it, the assistant tending the receiving apparatus found it was already tapping out the word “rats,” repeatedly. Then it mocked, “There was a young fellow of Italy, who diddled the public quite prettily…” and more. Maskelyne was attempting– rather successfully– to make Marconi’s claims of “secure and private communication” appear foolish.
Maskelyne with one of his more famous inventions/illusions: “Zoe, the drawing automaton”