Permutation and randomness in the Action Score Generator

This article discusses the Action Score Generator (ASG), an online writing machine that randomly arranges words into six-word-length performance scores. The generator belongs to a lineage of language-based artworks and practices that relinquish authorial control to the viewer. Exploring the methods of Event Scores developed by George Brecht the ASG is a website that distributes an infinite number of scores as both instructions and poetry. This is articulated in relation to Christopher Strachey’s ‘Love Letter Generator’ and other permutational and computational writing programmes that use randomness and code to produce writing in modular forms.