T-shirts and Algorithms

Hey, so, I have a t-shirt shop now. The shirts have algorithmically generated phrases created by scraping a database of inspirational quotes. The resulting phrases are kind of messed up… inspirational if you are inspired by the crushing exhaustion of having to just keep on…

For me, the generation of the phrases like this started with my Mansfield Reporter device, and continued with the Machine Made Wisdom project. In every iteration, the text is created through a semi-random process where the next word is generated on the probability of it occurring after the current word. This process is called Markov chaining, and the implementation used here is the Markovify library, developed at BuzzFeed.

Here, the text is meant to give the world better platitudes. You know what I mean... has anyone ever said to you, "every cloud has a silver lining", or "everything happens for a reason". I. Hate. That. Stuff. So, instead of those tired phrases, how about something new, like "what you want is sometimes broken"?

Some of the shirts use the same text and font as the original Mansfield Reporter project, including my original photos behind the text:

The shirts

The shirts are lovely, soft, and pre-shrunk! The design is printed direct-to-garment, and the shirt has a side-seamed construction with a tear away label. Listen, it's a great shirt! Check out the shop at https://shop.maxlupo.com.