Meanings lost and found #02: The Word Machine

"to refuse to fix meaning is, in the end, to refuse God"
R. Barthes, 1977

The second and final part of my project with language is the Word Machine.
The ethereal word machine mulls around responses to concepts that are ambiguous. In an attempt to map meaning, it spits those responses out in a tree of connected strings of collective verbal expression.
If meaning however is in our minds and not in words, sentences or objects, then pin-pointing it and mapping it is impossible.

The content that the Word Machine is using are single sentence statements from a collection of varied sources representing the/a collective unconscious. For the prototype, I'm using responses from 65 people to Wittgenstein's 'the limits of my language are the limits of my world' and quotes from my research [see previous blog entry for initial sketches]. Once the parameters and rules of the 'machine' however are set and defined, it should be possible for it to use any starting point for a different map/tree as long as there is relevant input and subject matter settings. Other potential subject matters besides 'language' for the machine to map will be: desire and time.

still from a visualisation of the sentence selection process

From a database of sentences the machine selects responses to connect in 3d space. The starting point is a key statement in regards to a subject matter. In this case"the limits of my language are the limits of my world". The 'machine' is looking for the first word of the succeeding sentence to match the last of the preceeding.
i.e. The limits of my language are the limits of my world/ My world is not your world.
The angle the new sentence is placed to join the previous one is according a a set of 'meaning parameters'.

The Word Machine will place the selected word in 3d space in an angle in all 3 axises (x, y, z), eacho of which has been assigned it's own meaning parameter of polar opposites measured in quarters (-90º, -45º, 45º, 90º) in relation to the machine's point zero.
The X axis angle stands for macro v/s micro, Y axis stands for quantative v/s qualitative, Z axis objective v/s subjective.

The viewer will be able to add her/his own sentence in the list and also explore each parameter separately and the structure as a whole in 3d space. This is still in working progress.

still from an initial simulation of the word machine in cinema4d