Mathias Bär
Syntax
Prediploma 2010. Generative book covers based on the text structure
Syntax
Syntax is a research project developed in the 2010/11 winter semester as part of my preliminary diploma course. The point of departure was the topic illiteracy and as such associated with the question of the extent to which the structure of a text reveals something about its content.
Syntax is a computer program written in Processing. It analyses the structure of a text and translates the data into basic parameters such as complexity, rhythm and emotionality. Following this, strings of distinguishable graphical shapes (aka words) are counted and sorted according to their usage to guess their importance. Then graphics are generated based on these results. Their construction does not comprise any kind of coincidental parameters. Syntax determines pattern, coloring, layout as well as the number, position and character of the individual shapes and the size and font of the title.
The aim of this visualization is not to render data legible as statistics, but to propose an image, that can be linked to the text's content and to make it possible to compare different texts from the same author to find similarities.
32 English-language texts were analyzed, of which 12 were presented as printed book covers. Each consists of a graphic on the front cover, a summary list of the analysis results on the inside of the back cover and the longest of the sentences, that in addition containes the most used word, on the back cover. The width of the book's spine is proportional to the length of the text.
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