All the words in the following poem (at least to our knowledge and with the exception of function words) are pseudowords; that is, they are words that could exist in accordance with the phonotactics of Czech—these combinations of sounds are possible in the spoken language—but they have no assigned meaning and are not used. The poem is therefore essentially nonsensical, and any interpretation depends entirely on the reader’s imagination, although the distinctly onomatopoeic nature of some of the pseudo-words provides considerable inspiration.
This experiment did not aim to create a poetic text of high aesthetic value, but merely to play with the combinatorial potential of the native language. It is remarkable that for each pseudoword, one can reliably identify its part of speech and most of its grammatical categories.
JEZÁPEK
V Městnale se krůcky škvoury
K mochci ďáry vyněraly
Pulstočmý kroch zanářel
Do stupí honkaje vořenky
Když jezápek kokeřil pod husečným vachalem koltěním zmán
Hlůmajíce zlanivou vostrčlici
Sníkali garánci garánkám vrůzy
A lačili jezápka zastrožlým přímanem
Zastrožlým z blímného vesepství
Dokřmeným lipačskou vrýnou
Hrů hrů! kafolčil jezápek zpufněle
A holivěl likajky garánkám
Až z hlemuňků kriskaly baťafky
A cuchraly zrepčeným blizalkám
Jalvičné zromky
Although the poem is essentially nonsensical, a certain image may arise in the reader’s mind when interpreting it. We were curious to see what kind of image artificial intelligence would form of it. We therefore used several available artificial intelligence models (ru-DALL-E, Dream, Deep Daze, starryai – Altair, starryai – Orion, and Night Café), which are capable of generating visual output from text input. Each model is slightly different; some produce photorealistic outputs, some are more abstract, and others are more artistically stylized. They also differ in how well they understand Czech (e.g., the ru-DALL-E model understands Czech very well).
Individual segments of this poem were fed into various AI models, and each one generated its own unique series of images based on its interpretation of those segments. From each of these series, we then created a video in which the individual images are projected while the corresponding segment of the poem is recited. The Deep Daze model can even record the process of creating these visualizations, so the video shows how its visualization gradually takes shape and becomes more refined.
ruDALL-E
Dream
starryai (Altair)
starryai (Orion)
Night Café
Deep Daze
What does the poem evoke in you? Does your impression of the poem match the interpretations of artificial intelligence?
Poem author:
Filip Drábek
Image by:
Vojta Maur