Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 4: Digital Era (1960s)
1965
Giorno Poetry Systems Founded
John Giorno’s Poetry Systems, “a nonprofit production company designed to introduce new, innovative poetry to wider audiences,” reflects Giorno’s belief that poetry, within the context of Pop-Art ideas, lagged behind other art forms in terms of media and inventiveness. He sought to innovate poetry by using modern communication technologies as a performance and publication space, leveraging telephones, televisions and records to connect with readers. Giorno would go on to collaborate with William Burroughs and Brion Gysin, among others.
-Sasha Stiles
*Image credit: John Giorno at Hotel Chelsea staring into Brion Gysin’s Dream Machine, 1965. Courtesy of the John Giorno Foundation
Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.
Sources
People
Brion Gysin, John Giorno, Sasha Stiles, William Burroughs
Movements
Computer Text, Generative Poetry
Filed under
- Ideas
- collaboration, Computer Text, Generative Poetry, Mass Media Art, performance, poetry, Pop Art
- People
- Brion Gysin, John Giorno, Sasha Stiles, William Burroughs
- Organisations
- Giorno Poetry Systems
- Places
- Hotel Chelsea
Echoes across time
- 2015 · Oscar Schwartz gives a TEDx Talk on Computational Poetics
- 2000 · Ray Kurzweil’s Cybernetic Poet
- 2019 · POEMPORTRAITS by Es Devlin, with Ross Goodwin and Google Arts & Culture
Le Random editorials
- Sasha Stiles and Martha Joseph on Language as Technology, Peter Bauman, September 10, 2025
- Sasha Stiles on Writing Poets, Peter Bauman, January 25, 2024
Le Random podcast
- Timeline Ch 4—Digital Era Pt I (1960s) with Dr A Michael Noll — listen with transcript on Le Random (07 Sep 2023, 60 min). Chapter 4’s episode. Apple Podcasts · Spotify
- Timeline Ch 4—Digital Era Pt II (1960s) with Michael Spalter — listen with transcript on Le Random (21 Sep 2023, 77 min). Chapter 4’s episode. Apple Podcasts · Spotify