John Cayley has practiced as a poet, translator, publisher, and bookdealer, and all these activities have often intersected with his training in Chinese culture and language. Links to his internationally recognized language art in networked and programmable media are at programmatology.com. There are two full-length printed books of poetic work, Ink Bamboo: poems, translations and adaptations (London: Agenda & Belew, 1996), and Image Generation: augmented and reconfigured (Counterpath, 2023). A book of selected essays with new material, Grammalepsy, was published in 2018. Cayley was the winner of the Electronic Literature Organization’s inaurgural award for poetry 2001. He taught at a number of universities in the United Kingdom, and held visiting positions in the United States before coming to Brown in 2007.
| Cayley, John. "Literature." Politcal Concepts, vol. 7, 2024, pp. n.p. The Literature Edition. |
| Cayley, John. "Speculative Translingual Rhapsody: oneiric translation." Ensemble Park, vol. 1, 2024, pp. 36-45. |
| Cayley, John. "The Code is not the Text: Generator." Our Generation, New York, Bad Quarto, 2024, pp. 12. |
| Cayley, John. "Tool for Tapered Airs." Taper, vol. 12, 2024, pp. n.p. |
| Cayley, John. "breathe." SubStance, vol. 52, no. 1, 2023, pp. 97-99. |
| Cayley, John. "Computational art explorations of linguistic possibility spaces: comparative translingual close readings of Daniel C. Howe’s Automatype and Radical of the Vertical Heart 忄." Digital Humanities Quarterly, vol. 17, no. 2, 2023, pp. n.p. |
| Cayley, John. "Garrett Stewart. Book, Text, Medium: Cross-Sectional Reading for a Digital Age." Critical Inquiry, vol. 50, no. 1, 2023, pp. 179-181. |
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Cayley, John.
Image generation: augmented and reconfigured. Counterpath, 2023.
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| Cayley, John. "Modelit: eliterature à la (language) mode(l)." Electronic Book Review, 2023, pp. n.p. |
| Cayley, John Howe, Daniel C. "Preoccupations [webapp; bespoke software; process documentation]." The New River, no. Spring, 2022, pp. n.p. |
| Cayley, John. "Differences that make no difference and ambiguities that do." Novel, vol. 54, no. 2, 2021, pp. 315-320. |
| Cayley, John. "Literature and its digital and computational others." Electronic Book Review, no. 02-07-2021, 2021, pp. n.p. |
| Cayley, John Rettberg, Scott. "At a heightened level of intensity: a discussion of the philosophy and politics of language in John Cayley’s digital poetics." Electronic Book Review, 2020, pp. n.p. |
| "No future, no future, no future for ..." The future of text, edited by Hegland, Frode Alexander, Southampton, Future Text Publishing, 2020, pp. 230-231. |
| Cayley, John; with Chen, Sally Qianxun. "The future of / -writing / -Vilém Flusser / +language / +John Cayley." The Digital Review, vol. 0, no. 0, 2020, pp. n.p. |
| "The language that machines read." Attention à la marche = Mind the Gap: penser la littérature électronique in a digital culture = thinking electronic literature in a digital culture, edited by Gervais, Bertrand; Marcotte, Sophie, Montreal, Les Presses de l’Ecureuil, 2020, pp. 105-113. |
| "[Mirroring] events at the sense horizon: translation over time." Prismatic translation, edited by Reynolds, Matthew, Cambridge, UK, Legenda, 2019, pp. 96-118. |
| Cayley, John. "A statement by The Readers Project concerning contemporary literary practice, digital mediation, intellectual property, and associated moral rights." Whose Book Is It Anyway? a view from elsewhere on publishing, copyright and creativity, Cambridge, UK, Open Book Publishers, 2019, pp. 21-32. |
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Cayley, John.
"Deferred lest meaning hoard solidity." POESIS: sprachkunst | language art, edited by Block, Friedrich w., Kassel, Kunsttempel, 2019, pp. n.p. (two-page catalog opening).
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Cayley, John.
"Reading language art in digital media: reconfigurations of experimental practices." Reading experimental writing, edited by Colby, Georgina, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2019, pp. 185-204.
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Cayley, John.
"The time of tongues is past." ReRites: human + A.I. poetry + Raw output: A.I. trained on custom poetry corpus + Responses: 8 essays about poetry and A.I., edited by Strickland, Stephanie, Montréal, Anteism, 2019, pp. 145-153.
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Cayley, John.
"The translation of process." At translation’s edge, New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 2019, pp. 31-59.
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| Grammalepsy: essays on digital language art. Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. |
| "Grammalespy: an introduction." Electronic Book Review, 2018, pp. n.p. |
| Cayley, John. "Reading." Political Concepts, vol. 5, no. 1, 2018, pp. n.p. The Trump Edition, vol. 1. |
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Cayley, John.
"The advent of aurature and the end of (electronic) literature." The Bloomsbury Handbook of Electronic Literature, edited by Tabbi, Joseph, New York, Bloomsbury Academic, 2018, pp. 73-94.
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| "The translation of process." Amodern, no. 8, 2018, pp. n.p. |
| Cayley, John. "Aurature at the end(s) of electronic literature." Electronic Book Review, 2017. |
| Cayley, John. "Reconfiguration: Symbolic Image and Language Art." Humanities, vol. 6, no. 1, 2017, pp. 8. |
| Cayley, John. "Toward a Distributed Gallery in the Scholarly Network." Humanist Studies & the Digital Age, vol. 5, no. 1, 2017. |
| "The Listeners: an instance of aurature." Cream City Review, vol. 40, no. 2, 2016, pp. 173-187. |
| Cayley, John. "Humus . . . Human . . . Humus." Differences that make no difference and ambiguities that do, vol. 48, no. 3, 2015, pp. 465-468. |
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Image Generation: a reader. Veer, 2015.
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| Cayley, John. "Reading and Giving Voice and Language." Performance Research, vol. 18, no. 5, 2013, pp. 10-19. |
| Howe, Daniel C., Cayley, John. "The Readers Project." ACM SIGGRAPH 2011 Art Gallery on - SIGGRAPH '11, 2011. |
| Howe, Daniel C., Cayley, John. "The Readers Project : Procedural Agents and Literary Vectors." Leonardo, vol. 44, no. 4, 2011, pp. 317-324. |
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Cayley, John
Xu Bing.
Tianshu: passages in the making of a book. Quaritch, 2009.
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| Cayley, John, Perring, Giles. "Imposition." Proceeding of the 16th ACM international conference on Multimedia - MM '08, 2008. |
| Cayley, John. "Screen Writing." Third Text, vol. 21, no. 5, 2007, pp. 603-609. |
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Ink Bamboo: poems, translations, adaptations. Agenda, 1996.
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| Cayley, John. "Catkin Willow Flats. By Liu Shaotang. [Beijing: Panda Books, 1984. 267pp.]Literatur und Politik in der Volksrepublik China. Edited and largely translated by Rudolf G. Wagner. [Frankfurt: Edition Suhrkamp, Neue Folge Band 151, 1983. 368pp.]." The China Quarterly, vol. 104, 1985, pp. 735. |
‘电脑生成的诗意文本与针对该文本的过程性中文翻译—源于萨缪尔·贝克特的文章《是如何》 = a Poetic Text Generated Using Computation, and a Procedural Translation Derived from This Text—Based on an Extract from Samuel Beckett’s How It Is.’ [In Chinese]. 上海文学 = Shanghai Literature, no. 480 (2017): 34-38.
‘Aurature at the End(s) of Electronic Literature.’ Electronic Book Review (2017): http://electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/aurature.
'A Statement by The Readers Project.' Whose Book Is It Anyway? IP, collaborative business models, and questions of ethics and creativity in digital publishing : Copyright Framework – Position Papers. (2016). http://www.create.ac.uk/research-programme/theme-4/wp4d-whose-book-is-it-anyway-ip-collaborative-business-models-and-questions-of-ethics-and-creativity-in-digital-publishing/copyright-framework-position-papers/a-statement-by-the-readers-project/.
‘Of Capta, Vectoralists, Reading and the Googlization of Universities.’ In Digital Humanities and Digital Media: conversations on politics, culture, aesthetics, and literacy, edited by Roberto Simanowski, 69-92. London: Open Humanities Press, 2016. The book is published as an Open Access pdf available here, and the pdf of my interview is downloadable here.
Image Generation: a reader. London: Veer Books, 2015. Or, in the US from NLLF. PDF.
‘Primary Source.’ an afterword for the self-published Primary Source by Francesca Capone. Providence, 2015. [no page numbers].
‘Editor’s Choice Review of PRY by Samantha Gorman and Danny Cannizzaro.’ Bomb 132 (2015): 14.
‘Untranslatability and Readability.’ Critical Multilingualism Studies 3.1 (2015): 70-89.
‘Poetry and Stuff: A Review of #!’ Electronic Book Review (2015).
‘Beginning with ‘the Image’ in How It Is When Translating Certain Processes of Digital Language Art.’ Electronic Book Review (2015).
Cayley, John, and Roberto Simanowski. ‘“If reading has changed then the human has changed” Interview with John Cayley.’ dichtung-digital 43 (2013): .
Howe, Daniel C. and John Cayley, ‘Reading, Writing, and Resisting: Literary Appropriation in The Readers Project.’ International Symposium of Electronic Art (ISEA). Eds. Kathy Cleland, Laura Fisher and Ross Harley. Sydney: ISEA International, the Australian Network for Art & Technology and the University of Sydney, 2013. http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/9475.
‘Uncut,’ and ‘One may not, I believe, glean from this analysis of the writing subject that such a subject is to be distinguished from the writing machine,’ and online commentary, ti-TCR 7 (a web folio of the Capilano Review) Fall 2013, online: http://www.thecapilanoreview.ca/ti-tcr--a-web-folio-jrg/
‘Terms of Reference & Vectoralist Transgressions: situating certain literary transactions over networked services’ Amodern 2 (2013) online: http://amodern.net (http://amodern.net/article/terms-of-reference-vectoralist-transgressions/), together with separate publication of the expository poem ‘Parameters toward the dissolution of certain vectoralist relations’ (listed under poetry below).
‘Parameters toward the dissolution of certain vectoralist relations’ Amodern 2 (2013) online: http://amodern.net (http://amodern.net/article/pentameters-toward-the-dissolution-of-certain-vectoralist-relations/)
'Weapons of the Deconstructive Masses (WDM): whatever Electronic Literature may or may not mean,' Revista de Estudos Literários , 1.2 (Literatura no século XXI) (2012): 25-56.
'Writing to Be Found and Writing Readers.' Digital Humanities Quarterly 5.3 (August 2011): http://digitalhumanities.org/dhq/.
Howe, Daniel C., and John Cayley. 'The Readers Project: Procedural Agents and Literary Vectors.' Leonardo 44.4 (August 2011): 317-24.
'The Gravity of the Leaf: Phenomenologies of Literary Inscription in Media-Constituted Diegetic Worlds.' Beyond the Screen: Transformations of Literary Structures, Interfaces and Genres. Eds. Peter Gendolla and Jörgen Schäfer. Media Upheavals. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2010. 199-226.
Tianshu: Passages in the Making of a Book by John Cayley with Xu Bing and others, ed. Katherine Spears. London: Bernard Quaritch, 2009.
Bing Xin = 冰 心. A Maze of Stars and Spring Water = 繁星 ． 春水 = Fanxing, Chunshui . Trans. John Cayley and Grace M. Boyton. Nanjing: Yilin Chubanshe, 2009.
'Weapons of the Deconstructive Masses: Whatever Electronic Literature May or May Not Mean.' Hyperhiz 6 (Sept 2009) http://www.hyperrhiz.net/hyperrhiz06/19-essays/70-weapons-of-the-deconstructive-masses.
translations of Gu Cheng, 'Excerpts from Eulogy World .' in Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond edited by Tina Chang, Nathalie Handal and Ravi Shankar. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2008. 333-34.
'Screen Writing: A Practice-Based, Eurorelative Introduction to Electronic Literature and Poetics.' Third Text: Writing Europe Special Issue 21.5 (88) (2007): 603-09.
'Beyond Codexspace: Potentialities of Literary Cybertext.' Media Poetry: An International Anthology . Ed. Eduardo Kac. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2007. 105-25.
'Lens: The Practice and Poetics of Writing in Immersive VR: A Case Study with Maquette.' Leonardo Electronic Almanac 14.5-6 (2006): [website, http://leoalmanac.org/journal/vol_14/lea_v14_n05-06/jcayley.asp ].
'Time Code Language: New Media Poetics and Programmed Signification.' New Media Poetics: Contexts, Technotexts, and Theories . Eds. Adalaide Morris and Thomas Swiss. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006. 307-33.
'Bass Resonance.' Electronic Book Review electropoetics (2005): [website, http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/dynamic ].
'Writing on Complex Surfaces.' dichtung-digital 35.2 (2005): [website, http://www.dichtung-digital.org/2005/2-Cayley.htm ].
'Literal Art: Neither Lines nor Pixels but Letters.' First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game . Eds. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. 208-17.
'The Code Is Not the Text (Unless It Is the Text) = Der Code Is Nicht Der Text (Es Sei Denn, Er Ist Der Text).' p0es1s: Ästhetik Digitaler Poesie = the Aesthetics of Digital Poetry . Eds. Friedrich W. Block, Christiane Heibach and Karin Wenz. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2004. 287-306.
'Overboard: An Example of Ambient Time-Based Poetics in Digital Art.' dichtung-digital 32 (2004): [website, http://www.dichtung-digital.org/2004/2-Cayley.htm ].
'Inner Workings: Code and Representations of Interiority in New Media Poetics.' dichtung-digital 29 (2003): [website, http://www.dichtung-digital.org/2003/3-cayley.htm ].
'From Byte to Inscription: An Interview with John Cayley by Brian Kim Stefans.' Iowa Review Web 5.1 (2003): [website, http://www.uiowa.edu/~iareview/tirweb/feature/cayley/index.html ].
'Book Unbound,' in The New Media Reader edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003.
'Digital Wen: On the Digitization of Letter- and Character-Based Systems of Inscription.' Reading East Asian Writing: The Limits of Literary Theory . Eds. Michel Hockx and Ivo Smits. Routledgecurzon-Iias Asian Studies Series. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. 277-94.
Indra's Net; Book Unbound; The Speaking Clock ; 'Pressing The "Reveal Code" Key;' all included in The New Media Reader . Eds. Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003. [Book and CD ROM].
'Hypertext/Cybertext/Poetext.' Assembling Alternatives: Reading Postmodern Poetries Transnationally . Ed. Romana Huk. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2003. 310-26.
'Hallucination and Coherence.' Positions 10.3 (2002): 773-84.
windsound, in State of the Arts: The Proceedings of the Electronic Literature Organization's 2002 State of the Arts Symposium & 2001 Electronic Literature Awards . Ed. Scott Rettberg. Los Angeles: Electronic Literature Organization, 2003. [CD ROM].
ed. with Loss Pequeño Glazier. Ergodic Poetry: A Special Section of the Cybertext Yearbook 2002-2003 . Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2003. (This is a book-length section of a specialist yearbook.)
'The Code Is Not the Text (Unless It Is the Text).' Electronic Book Review (2002): [website, http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/literal ].
'Writing (under-)Sky: On Xu Bing's 'Tianshu'.' A Book of the Book: Some Work and Projections About the Book and Writing . Eds. Jerome Rothenberg and Stephen Clay. New York: Granary Books, 2000. 497-503.
from: 'Pressing the Code Key,' Jerome Rothenberg & Pierre Joris eds. Poems for the Millennium: Volume 2: From Postwar to Millennium , Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998, pp. 827-28.
'Why Did People Make Things Like This?' Electronic Book Review Spring (1997): [website, http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/speculative ].
Book Unbound. Indra's Net VI in Postmodern Culture 7.3 (1997) [website, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/pmc/v007/ ].
Ink Bamboo: poems, translations, adaptations . London: Agenda Editions & Bellew Publishing, 1996.
An Essay on THE GOLDEN LION: Han-Shan in Indra's Net . Edinburgh: Morning Star Publications, Feb. 1995. (Limited edition artist's book.)
Under it All: texts, hologography, afterword. London: Many Press, 1993.
'Elsewhere' and 'Against Nature' (poems) in Agenda: an anthology: the first four decades 1959–1993, edited by William Cookson. Manchester: Carcanet, 1994.
| Year | Degree | Institution |
|---|---|---|
| 1978 | BA | Durham University |
2017 Majorie C. Luesebrink Career Achievement Award from the Electronic Literature Organization
2001 windsound winner of the Electronic Literature Organization's Award for Poetry.
2000 Honorary Fellowship of Dartington College of Arts.
| LITR 1000 - The Arts Workshop for Practice and Practice-Oriented Research |
| LITR 1010D - Advanced Digital Language Arts |
| LITR 1010G - Writing3D |
| LITR 1010H - Advanced Digital & Cross-Disciplinary Language Arts |
| LITR 1231E - Rereading Writing |
| LITR 2010B - Graduate Poetry |
