A collection of AI poems in collaboration with Anne Spalter, August 2022 – September 2023

• Persephone is owned by FlamingoDAO
• Medusa is owned by Mad Arts Museum
• Odys and Penny are available on SuperRare
• Achilles is available with Proof of People
• Icarus and Ariadne are available with Expanded.Art
•  Artemis, Cy, Hektor, Pandora, and Arachne are available on openSea
• Future Mythologies, a chapbook (PDF) of all 12 poems is also editioned and available on objkt

The Future Mythologies series – a collaboration between Anne Spalter and Nathaniel Stern for theVERSEverse’s GenText series – is a collection of 12 poems written in collaboration with text-based AIs, incorporated into videos produced with the help of text-to-image AIs. Each explores a character from Greek mythology, with a sci-fi twist. Written and performed by Stern, sound and images by Spalter.

Above: Future Mythologies: Penny, available on SuperRare

About the Series

I have been working with online performance poetry and ASCII art since my earliest net.art (1999), and for decades in videos, installations, and prints, initially culminating in my first major museum solo exhibition, The Storytellers (2004-2005), at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. hektor.net and the odys series (& odys for your iPod), for example, turned heroes from the Iliad and Odyssey into a poetry slam activist and stuttering storyteller, respectively. And beginning in 2021, theVERSEverse’s GenText series has been inviting poets to collaborate with AI and another (visual) artist towards new poetry-powered NFTs. Anne Spalter and I were partnered to produce GenText #5. Knowing that a properly trained Artificial Intelligence would be familiar with the stories from Greek tragedy of old, I prompted contemporary stylings of performance prose for 12 mythic leads: Odysseus, Achilles, Penelope, Icarus, Ariadne, Hektor, Medusa, Arachne, (a) Cyclops, Pandora, Persephone, and Artemis.

For our retellings, I added sci-fi elements to the texts so as to play with Anne’s ongoing and well-known text-to-image AI aesthetics, and negotiated with the AI to give the characters their own humor, angst, snark, or inner peace, among other attributes.

Persephone navigates space carefully – never turning around – and finds beauty. Odysseus longs to feel present in his journeys. Achilles wants to be more than his story. Penelope tires of waiting and weaving for Odysseus, and instead takes flight. Icarus revels in his angst. Ariadne questions everything, and finds her way. Hektor accepts his fate as the fallen hero. Medusa overwrites tragedy with adventure. Arachne finds love in raw potential. Cyclops looks and sees, draws and creates. If she had to do it again, Pandora would still open the box. And finally, Artemis asserts that she is far more than a symbol.

More samples works:

Above: Future Mythologies: Icarus with Expanded.Art

Above: Future Mythologies: Medusa on OpenSea

Above: Future Mythologies: Odys, available on SuperRare

Above: Future Mythologies: Ariadne, with Expanded.Art

Events

• – The first in the series, Future Mythologies: Persephone, premiered at the SuperRare Gallery in Soho in August 2022, and online in theVerseVerse SuperRare space that same month. It was purchased by FlamingoDAO.
• – Several readings and showings took place internationally – in London, LA, Paris, New York, Miami, and elsewhere throughout 2022 and 2023.
• – See this fantastic interview of Nathaniel and Anne with Anika Meier on Expanded.Art
• Insightful review on Forbes.com