P rogress Report A well-tempered computer called Auto B eatnik at Glendale,
California, writes perfectly good verse straight from its electronic heart. Any- one who has ever enjoyed the gobbledygook Poured forth at public readings in Greenwich Village must agree that the mechanisation of the muse is a great step forward in the march Of mind. The idea should be extended. Quite a "all battery of properly programmed machines could soon treble the already sizeable turnover Of the chic dealers' art galleries in Europe and the United States. Another could keep up a steady flow of 'distinguished serial music to any Yardage required. With the intelligent use of the Marvellous new instruments at our disposal we c_°111d, with very small effort, effectively hasten the dehumanisation of art that has been pro- ceeding inexorably, if jumpily, for many decades n°w. The very word 'art' has long been, t0 the most advanced practitioners, a positively dirty expression. And in so far as 'art' has been all imposition of order on the inchoate flux of experience, its undeniably authoritarian over- t"es have been a severe embarrassment to the most socially conscious critics who are hot on democracy' in all departments of life. By turn- ing the aesthetic activity over to the machine once ',Lilt' for all, a great load would be lifted from their poor minds. Prigs, puritans, wowsers, and au the assorted interfering busybodies of history have never been able finally to lay that ghost w. bleb frightened Plato. Auto Beatnik and a few influential fashionmongers could soon do so between them.
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