Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 2: Modern Era (1850–1949)

1920

Random Poetry (generation) by Tristan Tzara

Artwork

Tristan Tzara wearing a monocle, photographed with his arms raised behind his head and a strong shadow on the wall.
Tristan Tzara photographed by Man Ray in 1931, eleven years after the 1920 Dada manifesto discussed here. Man Ray, Tristan Tzara, 1931, gelatin silver print. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Gift of James Thrall Soby, 107.1941. © 2026 Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Image source.

Possibly the most influential among the avant-garde experimentalist giants, Tzara says in his own words, in a 1920 manifesto later collected in Seven Dada Manifestos:

"Take a newspaper. Take a pair of scissors. Choose an article as long as you are planning to make your poem. Cut out the article. Then cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them in a bag. Shake it gently. Then take out the scraps one after another in the order in which they left the bag. Copy conscientiously. The poem will be like you. And here you are a writer, infinitely original and endowed with a sensibility that is charming beyond the understanding of the vulgar."

Burroughs spoke of its influence on him in “The Third Mind interview” (1977) as have many others.

-Vuk Ćosić

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

Sources

People

Tristan Tzara, Vuk Ćosić, William Burroughs

Movements

Chance Art, Computer Text, Generative Poetry, Material Generative Art, instruction art

Filed under

Ideas
chance, Chance Art, collage, Computer Text, Dadaism, Generative Poetry, Material Generative Art, poetry, randomness
Technologies
chance procedures, cut-up technique
People
Tristan Tzara, Vuk Ćosić, William Burroughs
Works
Random Poetry, Seven Dada Manifestos, Shake, The Third Mind

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