More plays than atoms in the universe: the digitization of a 19th-century generator for one-act comedies

Dîlan Canan Çakir, Frank Fischer, Mark Schwindt, Jonas Rohe

In this paper, we describe a German-language literary automaton from the first half of the nineteenth century, which can generate over 44 × 11155 German-language one-act plays, far exceeding the number of atoms in the universe. The 1,200 text pieces serving as source for the generator were printed in the 1829 book, Neunhundert neun und neunzig und noch etliche Almanachs-Lustspiele durch den Würfel (English: Rolling the Dice for 999 and Many More Almanac Comedies), where they are arranged at random. The book is supplemented by a table that assigns each piece from the book to consecutive dice rolls, thus generating a complete, unique play in 200 dice rolls altogether. One-act plays of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, popular in their time, are often overlooked today. Georg Nikolaus Bärmann, author of the comedy-generating book, recognized the high demand for such plays when creating his printed drama machine, which, according to his often ironic claims, was able to produce one-act plays for 133 years of reading. Our project demonstrates how historical cultural practices can be transferred into modern digital applications, offering a perspective on the intersection of gamification, cultural heritage, and interactivity in both historical and contemporary contexts. We describe the multi-stage digitization of Bärmann's work and the development of a web application that allows us to experience the analog game in a digital environment. The web app is available at https://temporal-communities.github.io/999/.

► doi.org