Poesie Automat

2005-2006: Known German writer Hans Magnus Enzensberger developed the idea of a „poetry machine“ that can create poems on its own back in 1974, but it was just an idea then. So an online version was developed for the 2006 World Cup. The poetry machine created 850.000 poems which were circulated by the German Press Agency (dpa) and hosted by Die Zeit, a premium weekly newspaper in Germany.

The concept for the project creation was developed from discussions between Christian Bauer, André Heller, and Virgil Widrich. The online portal of the weekly newspaper „Die Zeit“ was won as the host and multiplier for the poetry machine.

Realisation by Christian Bauer with software from Philipp Wassibauer and project support by Gero von Randow, Ulrich Dehne and Benjamin Minack (Die Zeit Online), as well as Petra Hauer, Christine Klell, Thomas Kalser and Tom Sperlich. Supported by Hans Magnus Enzensberger and André Heller. Client was the DFB-Kulturstiftung – Dr. Volker Bartsch, Reinhard Alings and Judith Hehne in cooperation with PR-Agency MMK – Klaus Stoffers, Anne Wäschle und Wiebke Gülcibuk.