Chris and Ali Rodley / Magic Realism Bot

As part of The Art of Bots showcase, Chris and Ali Rodley presented the Magic Realism Bot.

Project Intro:

Magic Realism Bot is inspired by the writing of Jorge Luis Borges, Umberto Eco, Gabriel García Márquez and of the children’s stories by Lewis Carroll, Philip Pullman and Richard Hughes. This literary bot, creates generative story synopses (in 140 characters), which it tweets every two hours, each day. The story content covers a rich and colourful terrain – from glass cathedrals, swimming pools filled with clocks, a tsarina who falls in love with time. For The Art of Bots the artists will create a projected installation version of this bot, showing the inner working of the bot, the language and choices it makes when creating these stories. @MagicRealismBot

Artist Bio:

Chris Rodley is a writer for new media based in Sydney, Australia. His work explores emerging frontiers for the literary in networked environments, especially the utilisation of real-time data in digital writing. His media art collaborations with Andrew Burrell have appeared at a number of international festivals including ISEA 2013 and 2015, the Electronic Literature Organization’s Media Arts Show, and the Art and Algorithms Festival. Chris is currently a PhD candidate in digital cultures at the University of Sydney, where his research focuses on the future of writing. Ali Rodley is a coder and teacher who is also based in Sydney, Australia. Her past projects include Magic Realism Bot, a literary Twitter bot, as well as several educational and cultural websites.