12 Dec Type to erase. Repeat to forget.

We type to make text appear on screen or paper. We repeat things to remember them. What if we invert the process—type sentences out to erase them, and repeat words to make them disappear?

The project consists of two parts. In part one— “Type to erase”—short sentences, Markov-chain-generated from the lyrics of the world’s 204 national anthems, appear on screen, and your only goal is to erase them one by one by typing them out. In part two—“Repeat to forget”— you are asked to read sentences from the same text source as part one. The words will be erased if you say them correctly. In the process of going back and forth with a speech recognition system that judges your pronunciation, the words lose their meanings and become mere syllables.

Below are the links to the work:

The code for “Type to erase”

For some reason the alpha editor cannot play the sketch, here is a video of how “Type to erase” works.

The code for “Repeat to forget” 

Click here to play “Repeat to forget” fullscreen.