https://github.com/zmuhls/babylon-redux
A collection of interactive webtexts remixing Borges' "Library of Babel" with Oulipo-inspired computational constraints
https://github.com/zmuhls/babylon-redux
Last synced: 4 months ago
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A collection of interactive webtexts remixing Borges' "Library of Babel" with Oulipo-inspired computational constraints
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/zmuhls/babylon-redux
- Owner: zmuhls
- Created: 2024-12-27T08:11:04.000Z (over 1 year ago)
- Default Branch: main
- Last Pushed: 2025-03-16T22:44:01.000Z (about 1 year ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-09-10T07:44:33.788Z (9 months ago)
- Language: HTML
- Homepage: https://zmuhls.github.io/babylon-redux/
- Size: 557 KB
- Stars: 2
- Watchers: 1
- Forks: 0
- Open Issues: 0
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Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
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README
# README.md
---
This project transforms Jorge Luis Borges' "Library of Babel" into an interactive collection of webtexts, combinatorial tools, and algorithmic compositions. Each project leverages both literary devices and algorithmic schemes to remix passages from the story into experimental works of electronic literature.
Bridging creative writing with forms of algorithmic play, **Babylon Redux** draws inspiration from the literary experiments of Oulipo, the stochastic poetics of Johanna Drucker, and the "uncreative writing" of Kenneth Goldsmith and other practitioners of electronic literature. From these influences, these works explore how computational and literary frameworks can together make creative writing more interactive, engaging, and adaptable to digital environs.
## Links
- [Homepage](https://zmuhls.github.io/babylon-redux)
- [Mood Ring](https://zmuhls.github.io/babylon-redux/ring.html)
- [Star Signal](https://zmuhls.github.io/babylon-redux/signal.html)
- [Tower Fragments](https://zmuhls.github.io/babylon-redux/fragments.html)
- [Index Loop](https://zmuhls.github.io/babylon-redux/loop.html)
- [Cipher Text](https://zmuhls.github.io/babylon-redux/cipher.html)
## Experimental Webtexts
- **Mood Ring**: A dynamic poem generator that restyles lines of verse based on cursor position, looping over nonlinear versions of a decade-old personal poem. [Try it](https://zmuhls.github.io/babylon-redux/ring.html)
- **Star Signal**: Encodes The Library of Babel passages in Morse code, displayed in a Fibonacci spiral of animated stars. [Try it](https://zmuhls.github.io/babylon-redux/signal.html)
- **Tower Fragments**: Selects and filters passages from The Library of Babel into philosophical, literary, or descriptive categories using a weighted probability distribution. [Try it](https://zmuhls.github.io/babylon-redux/fragments.html)
- **Index Loop**: A 26-word index of Borgesian terms interwoven with AI-generated neologisms, shifting alphabetically at the rhythm of a heartbeat. [Try it](https://zmuhls.github.io/babylon-redux/loop.html)
- **Cipher Text**: Encrypts The Library of Babel using classical ciphers, displayed as interactive blocks containing a coded message from the future. [Try it](https://zmuhls.github.io/babylon-redux/cipher.html)
## Quick Start
1. Open index.html in any modern browser
2. Navigate between experiments via the floating menu
3. Pure HTML/CSS/JS – no build process or dependencies required
## Sources & Inspiration
- The Library of Babel: [Jonathan Basile's digital adaptation](https://libraryofbabel.info)
- Full Text of Borges' The Library of Babel
- Oulipo Constraints: combinatoriality, N+7 substitutions, lipograms, the Graeco-Latin bisquares in Life: A User's Manual, and more
- Johanna Drucker: Theories of stochastic poetics and emergent meaning
## Technical Notes
I used several code-based LLMs to generate and fine-tune these projects including ChatGPT-3.5/4o, Claude-3.5 Sonnet, and company. I would often generate first drafts in a chatbot conversation, then moved the code to Visual Code Studio to refine it by hand and with Colab versions of ChatGPT-4o.
## License
GNU General Public License v3.0
**Presented at MLA 2025**: "[Prompt Engineering as Rhetoric, Literary Criticism, & Creative Writing](https://mla.confex.com/mla/2025/meetingapp.cgi/Session/20998)."