Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 7: Net Era (1990s)

1995

David Bowie and Ty Roberts Develop The Verbasizer

Software/Tool

An animated GIF from Motherboard's report on the Verbasizer, showing the application's screen assembling randomised word strings such as 'top medals admiral'.
An animated GIF from Motherboard's report on the Verbasizer, showing the application's screen assembling randomised word strings such as 'top medals admiral'. Animated GIF from 'The Verbasizer Was David Bowie's 1995 Lyric-Writing Mac App', Motherboard (Vice), January 2016. Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

The Verbasizer is developed by David Bowie and Ty Roberts as a way to automate and speed up Bowie’s long-standing technique of cutting up fragments of text and rearranging them at random to create song lyrics.

-Sasha Stiles

Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.

Sources

People

David Bowie, Sasha Stiles, Ty Roberts

Movements

Computer Text, Generative Poetry

Filed under

Ideas
automation, Computer Text, Generative Poetry, language, music, randomness
Technologies
chance procedures, cut-up technique, Verbasizer
People
David Bowie, Sasha Stiles, Ty Roberts
Works
David

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