🧾 DETAILS
Artist: Sasha Stiles (with Technelegy)
Year: 2022
Medium: Generative poem (NFT, visual text-based artwork)
Dimensions: n/a
Category: Poetry / Generative Literature
Room: n/a
🧠 DESCRIPTION
“The Orchid Cage” is a 10-part generative poem inspired by Herbert W. Franke’s sci-fi novel of the same name, written and visualized by Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and artist Sasha Stiles and her AI-powered alter ego, Technelegy. Through intimate collaboration with her co-author, Stiles used elements from an English translation of Franke’s book, including text and cover imagery, as seeds of machinic imagination – resulting in a literary work that honors and tests Franke’s assertion that “computer poetry is undoubtedly the most difficult task of the computer in art.” Each stanza is digitally rendered in a style influenced by Franke’s Oscillogram (1954-58) series, and is part of Stiles’ REPETAE series exploring repetition as a fundamental poetic technique.
VI. You must choose one or the other: the past or the future. There is no third way, you can't have both. You must make a decision. The past is beautiful but it will haunt you. The future is ugly but will give you hope.
Released on the occasion of the Tribute to Herbert W. Franke, and minted as a 10-part collection, 1 stanza per piece. There are a total of 20 editions of the complete poem cycle (plus 1 AP).
www.tribute-hwf.comwww.sashastiles.com #TributeHerbertWFranke #REPETAE
🔍 SIGNIFICANCE
- Introduces AI-assisted literary creation
- Demonstrates language as generative system
- Explores co-authorship between human and machine
- Connects historical computer poetry (Franke) with contemporary AI
- Shifts poetry from expression → structure and process
✍️ INTERPRETATION
🧩 POSITION IN THE COLLECTION
📚 PROVENANCE
NFT — Objkt platform
https://objkt.com/tokens/KT1WGNjQmFft4GZK5UHy58nkFxecXjfEdqqr/9