[spectre] An Unexpected Story - computers and text 18:00 BST 6pm Wed. 20 May

[Geoff Davis]

Computer Arts Society ONLINE Talk “An Unexpected Story: AI and the Writer”
-  host Geoff Davis with David Link (art and also music with F.M.
Einheit ex Einstürzende
Neubauten).

BOOK NOW ON EVENTBRITE

https://computerartssociety200526.eventbrite.co.uk/

Computer-generated text is not new. From the first procedural poems of 1952
through hypertext fiction, net art, and early neural text experiments,
artists and programmers have been exploring what machines can do with
language long before ChatGPT turned it into a mainstream source of
fascination and anxiety.

Today, the concerns are real: ownership, authorship, payment, and what
still counts as human work. This talk traces the hidden history behind
those questions through the work of David Link and Geoff Davis, and asks
what it means to build your own tools in a culture where most people are
using someone else’s.

Online only - Wednesday 20th May 2026 - 18:00 BST 6pm UK

Other time zones here:  https://www.timeanddate.com

SPEAKERS

Geoff Davis, Dr David Link

Geoff Davis is an artist, PEN-published writer and CAS Committee member
with a practice spanning four decades, from early text generation and
computer art in the 1980s to contemporary AI-assisted works, along with
novels and music. He is the editor of the AI Creative Anthology series
(2023, 2024, 2026) and has hosted a series of AI and the Arts panel talks
for the Computer Arts Society.

Davis is a researcher at UAL examining AI and text generation, the
practical use and emotional dimensions of both the user response and the
tool itself, including sycophancy and what he terms 'mood bias'. His first
Story Generator, written and released by Micro Arts in 1985 and distributed
via the Prestel network, has been exhibited internationally from 1985 to
2025, and was described by curator Georg Bak as 'an early precursor of
ChatGPT'. Davis also created pioneering Pixel art and Glitch art in 1984,
and a code generated animation from Valerie Solanas's SCUM Manifesto,
exploring themes of Universal Basic Income, which he returns to in Pattern
City, a novel incorporating art, due 2026. His work is in many
international collections.

More information at linktr.ee/GeoffDavis

David Link, born in Düsseldorf in 1971. Artist, media theorist and
programmer. Lives and works in Cologne, Germany.

Music - Radar Angels with F.M. Einheit (ex Einstürzende Neubauten).

His artistic works are shown at festivals and in museums worldwide.
Exhibitions (selection): Arnolfini, Bristol, UK (2010); dOCUMENTA 13,
Kassel (2012); Microwave Festival, Hong Kong (2012); YCAM, Yamaguchi, Japan
(2013); ZKM, Karlsruhe (2015, 2018, 2019-2022); CCCB, Barcelona, Spain
(2016); Manchester Art Gallery, UK (2016); MAK, Vienna, Austria (2019);
Crone Gallery Wien Berlin (2021, 2022); Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary
Art, China (2023).

His theoretical work can be found in: David Link, Archaeology of
Algorithmic Artefacts (Minneapolis: Univocal, 2016). In 2024, he published
Pandaemonium, a 300-page poem, entirely computer-generated (Berlin: Matthes
and Seitz, 2024, in German). In 2009 he coded and exhibited Strachey’s
famous ‘Love Poems’ from 1952.

 More information: Dr. David Link

https://alpha60.de

 We will discuss other writers such as Richard Beard and his ‘Universal
Turing Machine’.

 More information

https://computer-arts-society.com/events/aiartgeoffdavismay2026.html

 BOOK NOW - ONLINE ONLY via Zoom.

https://computerartssociety200526.eventbrite.co.uk/

 Next talk is Genetic Moo – “Interactive Art Is Best” – details here:

https://computer-arts-society.com/events/genetic-moo-2026.html

 You can see our future programme here:
https://computer-arts-society.com/events/index.html

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT

25 Copthall Avenue, London, EC2R 7BP, UK
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