Milliongenerations:Letters

The LETTERS project

Concept

Example (picture modified to render an impression of a possible realization)

• A poet conceives (the begin of) a poem but keeps it secret.

(Or group of poets committed to secrecy, with eg every poet adding a set amount - one or three or ten years worth, even if that stops mid-word?)

• The poem is published on the stones of a street at a rate of one character per week, on the first workday of the week. About three years for an average sentence.

A cobblestone is replaced with one bearing the first letter on it.

The following week a stone with the next letter is set next to the previous one, and so forth, so that the poem slowly becomes legible.

The stones should be similar to existing ones so that a space could be just the old stone left in place (a week without action).

The stones should also carry a consecutive number (counting weeks, i.e., including spaces), much smaller on the face and on the bottom or side of the stone.

Possibly also a date and position information and precaution against removal (e.g., mechanical link to other stones), depending on cost.

Whoever pays for the stone can (if desired) have a name published on the website (see below), and can (extra cost) have it engraved on the stone (small on face, better side or bottom) or legible on a stone next to it, and could receive a certificate e.g., with picture of the stone, location and the poem to date. Details to be discussed.

The local authorities authorize the route and organize the placement of the stones.

• With the first stone(s), stones with time markers (e.g., year numbers) are set in the pavement along the planned route marking the year when the poem is expected to reach the marker.

This should go a considerable number of years ahead, certainly beyond the expected lifespan of any viewer, say 500 years:

every year marked for the next nine,

every tenth year marked for the next 100,

every hundreth year marked after that.

When a marker is reached, another of its kind is placed further up the planned route to maintain the number of years the markers walk ahead.

Markers might have to be shifted to account for changes in street pavement or route.

Markers remain in place after the poem has reached them to show the history and form the scale of a 'meter of time'.

• The intention is to continue this for as long as someone writes poems, pays for the making of stone letters and can place them.

Before the poem is published completely, someone else extends the poem, and again keeps it secret to be published only one stone per week (seven days).

Future individuals can decide whether or not they want to continue the effort.

The letters and markers stay

Authorities can at any time decide to discontinue placements of stones on their territory, or alter the route, or remove the stones, but if the concept (and poem) is interesting, they have a motivation to keep and maintain it and let the effort continue

If the pavement is changed, construction goes on along the past or future route, or the effort is vandalized, future people might be motivated to move or reconstruct the poem and continue the effort, or someone can start and continue a similar effort elsewhere, which might run longer.

• An information board could be placed at the beginning, and in regular intervals, e.g. next to every ten or 25 year marker when that is reached. It informs about

Concept

Secret poem published in weekly rhythm,

Paid for by public,

Intention to continue, to benefit future individuals,

Authors, supporters,

Good causes that are supported,

Where to contribute/pay for stones and find credits (website, possibly a folder at tourist information).

• Information boards and (marker) stones (if technically feasible) might include a unit to play the longplayer's music when touched or stepped upon.

Ensure this is done and continued only as long as it is supported by nearby residents and the Longplayer's organizers.

• A website publishes and guides the effort. It should at least perform the following:

Show the poem text up to its current letter, along with the poems physical location, pictures and planned route.

Auction off the next stone/letter.

Credit those who paid for the letters (list, newest first, name&city or anonymous as selected by payer, cause and contribution to good cause) and the amount,

Allow for suggesting and recommending on recognized (tax-excempt) good causes with a relation to long term issues.

Allow the payer to select an (external) good cause from the (five?) causes with the most votes in the past year (or selects one at random with weights according to the number of votes when the payer doesn't specify).

Allows public access to all documents, account statements and financial reports of the effort (except for details of payers who choose to be anonymous, the remaining parts of the poem and the notary) as they become available.

Allow the public to vote on decisions, such as which organization should host the effort for the next period or which poets should conceive the continuation (this part need only be operational a bit before the decisions are due).

Allow the public to translate the published parts of the poem into other languages and improve on such translations (a la wikipedia, this needs only to be operational after some time when sufficient text is available).

Inform about the history of the effort and the organizers and host cities as well as and similar initiatives and longplayer.

Host a forum for comments and suggestions on the subject, if necessary moderated by the organizers.

• The effort should be hosted by existing organizations with compatible goals for a while, to be passed on to another every ten years or so, to be decided by the public.

• Reasonable precautions should be taken to keep the remainder of the poem secret but secure and the appropriate letters are made available only as time passes.

The unpublished parts of the poem should be known only to the poet(s) and as back-up a notary, and another notary if the poet(s) no longer (can) cooperate.

The poet (or notary) provides the next letter as late as possible for logistics to the person engraving the next stone, and provides notice when the last 100 letters are begun.

The poem must not be known to the organizers or the host city.

The notary/notaries are known only to the organizers, not the poet or public, and confirms only that a poem was received in a closed envelope sealed by the poet, which is resealed and kept safe and otherwise only takes action when required.

If secrecy and malfunction can be reasonably ensured, the poem might be encrypted and published per letter on the website with advance notice only to the stone engraver.

If the remainder of the poem becomes known, the public selects another poet from suggestions of the organizers and conceives a continuation, which starts as early as possible.

• The effort is for the benefit of future people i.e., not-for-profit.

Suppliers and participants are asked to contribute for free or at cost (name on site). Poets should be paid something per letter as these are published.

If contributors/participants benefit disproportionately from their effort e.g., by increasing their reputation beyond an adequate return for the effort, a good cause of their choice should benefit accordingly.

If more funding can be obtained than is required to maintain the project, a good cause should benefit that makes it more likely that civilization continues.

• Starting up

We hope to obtain commitments from

poets in Utrecht (eg, immediately or soon to be placed parts by existing members of Dichtersgilde or invited contributions, and future pieces added by future members)

the city of Utrecht,

suppliers of stones and engravings,

a notary and bank,

partners for website creation and operation,

a first host organization,

and plan to solicit contributions to pay for starting up the effort and the first (10/50/100?) stones/letters from organisations, companies and the public .

could start eg, with stone 1 = 3 Jan 2000, and lay all stones from then until now in one go - so the project is anchored with a more substantial beginning

• Funds to pay for the effort are solicited from the public as described above.

The auctions of the stones should pay for:

the engraving of the stones,

stones, unless the existing cobblestones can be used,

the poets receive something per letter - to be negotiated, say enough to pay for one meal per month,

the markers,

the website:

operation,

maintenance (and improvement) when necessary (e.g., as standards change and new functionality (decisions) are required) - (use and advance open source software wherever possible),

hosting,

making and placing of the next marker (each stone pays about 2% of one),

accounting, bank and notary charges and supervision of finances (again about 2% of annual cost per stone).

All excess funds should contribute to good causes, with extras left after accounting donated, too. The effort should not require much organization and certainly not reserves.

Placement of the stones is paid for and organized by the authorities in the host city.

If additional funds are necessary, these can be solicited seperately, such as for

starting the effort, including the initial markers and website and information board

repairing vandalism

placing and maintaining information boards along the route (e.g., at ten year markers that are reached)

The effort should not build reserves for more than a few months, initally a year. If nobody wants to fund it, the effort stops.

Considerations

Name of the Effort

• Letters

Letters can be small units of information. Civilization is about information over time.

nice because it has a double meaning in English and is also a Dutch word

• • Variants
    • Letters to future / 2future
    • Letters for future / 4future
• Name it: "Living Poem". whoever funds a stone could be "godfather of a living poem".
• poem without end
• endless poem
• slow poem
• Stone clock - the original name

Place of publication

• online
• In the center of Utrecht, The Netherlands

if the authorities are supportive

• Oudegracht has a suitable dividing line of stones between the pedestrian part and the traffic part of the street running from Lijnmarkt towards Ledig Erf, and similarly Nieuwegracht, probably enough stones for 200 years.
  • It is an old street, the canal goes back to the 12th/13th century and is a major attraction of the city that probably will stay for a while.
  • Not too crowded.

• People are going to read, so have the line run across a part where not paying attention to traffic has a low chance of leading to accidents.
• Let letters/poem be legible when viewed from the 'pedestrian side' of the street.

• In Utrecht, Netherlands, on streets for traffic most cobblestones run in a way that gives a crooked line if one wants to follow the street (picture below). Pedestrian parts of the streets often have thin stones placed in parallel but shifted from row to row. Neither are ideal for reading a slow poem. Some streets have a divider between pedestrian and vehicle sections made from stones of about square cross sections. They seem good candidates (picture above).

Poem

A never ending poem. The poets or the public ask successors to carry the work on when the letters of the previous poem are published.

If one poet makes a contribution unduly long that risks disinterest and stopping (who would want to be responsible for that?)

Stones

• material should be widely available, unharmful, lasting
  • granite?

• Have a batch of cobblestones made with the letters engraved. Make sure replacements for vandalism can be ordered later. Could ask local artists to contribute to the surfaces or the letters or embed something in the stones (makes vandalism and theft more likely, though...).

• replace just first stone. then take replaced stone to the artist and have it engraved to replace the next one... (more work & coordination, but more inspiring!)

first xxx stones exchanged in one go stored leave room for vacations & repairs...

• If you have suitable stones in the street, you could engrave them in situ rather than place a new one. Easier to start, more expensive in the long term.

Why a letter per week

A week is a unit of culture, less dictated by nature than day or year. The year marks along the route still link to nature.

A letter per day or word per week are too fast and less likely to be continued over long periods. A letter per day is rather expensive. A word per stone is difficult to read or destroys the link between distance and time.

Keep it cheap

A project is sustainable if it is cheap enough to be the first of a series continuing indefinitely into the future. A project is unsustainable if it is so expensive that it cannot be repeated without major political battles. A sustainable project marks the beginning of a new era. An unsustainable project marks the end of an old era. -- Freeman Dyson (thanks, @Treyka)

Maintenance and Resilience

Keep doing it for as long as possible and make the project independent from any particular person as soon as possible. If the community around it doesn't want to continue, it will likely stop.

• Vandalism

Like civilization itself, the stone letters are vulnerable to vandalism, as well as neglect. If the project is worthwhile, means for repair will be found.

• Changes to infrastructure

Repairs to the streets are complicated by the line, and stones wear and might have to be replaced. Broad support might give it a chance to continue.

The street along the route could change or disappear. If the project is worthwhile, future individuals will move it.

Motivation

The letters of a poem convey the will to culture in addition to the content, the weekly rhythm and yearly marks bind civilization and nature. The will to continue expresses the duty felt to posterity.

To last, civilization, too, might need constant care and attention. It's for posterity that we strive, to pass on our genes, or just in the hope that someone will continue to be there and realize that life is wonderful. The continued effort becomes the monument: not only our effort but the continued effort of those after us. Worth a try.

Next to being a monument of our actions for posterity, the poem could become a tourist attraction. Both could help convince the authorities.

Placement of stones

• With the right tool ('klinkertrekker/stenentrekker') pulling out a stone it a matter of seconds (see picture below). Replacing it with one of the same size should not take much time either.

Stones of alternating direction, pulling out a stone (image modified):

Steps to implementation

• hope to involve Ingmar Heytze and the Utrechts dichtersgilde.
• meeting of people from milliongenerations with the dichtersgilde
• engage the authorities

History of the project

The project grew out of the Stone clock project. After a discussion with Ingmar Heytze in Utrecht early in 2011 the idea arose to add meaning to the stones by putting letters on them. Ingmar suggested that the guild of poets in Utrecht, the dichtersgilde, could devise the poem.

The stone clock project was inspired by Danny Hillis' 10,000 year clock and reports (1)(2) about it in The Economist with the thought that human intervention might be acceptable as means of perpetuation. Greg Blonder's TiWalkMe Ten Thousand Year Forest was found later but provides important inspiration and is much closer conceptually. The idea of the (endless) poem was inspired by a meeting and exchange with Ingmar Heytze in 2011.

Background

Related efforts, to be inspired by

• Danny Hillis' 10,000 year clock in the mountain built by the LongNow Foundation
• Greg Blonder's TiWalkMe Escapement, a Ten Thousand Year Forest - Timepiece
• John Cage planned his composition ORGAN2/ASLSP (as slow as possible) to last 639 years. A performance in Halberstadt Germany was begun in 2001.
• Longplayer is a one thousand year long musical composition conceived and composed by Jem Finer. It began playing at midnight on the 31st of December 1999 at the Lighthouse in Trinity Buoy Wharf, London, and intends to continue to play without repetition until the last moment of 2999, at which point it hopes to complete its cycle and begin again.
• Painter Roman Opalka documented time in his details 1965 / 1 – ∞, stating "the fundamental basis of my work, to which I have dedicated my life, manifests itself in a process of recording a progression that both documents time and also defines it."
• In Personal Structures artists work around space, time and existence. Their 2009 essay draws on Martin Heidegger's Being and Time.
• Alicia Eggert created pieces dealing with time, including Eternity and Between Now And Then
• The Cow Parade project originated in Zürich (Land in Sicht/Züricher Kuh Kultur), used private sponsors and many artists and spread as a concept through many cities, with large statues of cows or other colorfully painted beasts spread across the town.
• On Kawara's Time series and One million years read eg, at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
• TiWalkMe's site has links to related efforts

efforts similar by name or nature, with different objective

endless poem

• The endless poets created a site for collaborative poetry creation called Endless Poem as part of a Ruby on Rails programming competition
• The Muse-Mongers' Endless Poem is long
• an episode of the Gundam animated film is called Never-ending poem or endless poem
• Poetry in Stone - a mason describes his work
• Wilfred Wilson Gibson wrote a poem The Stone
• Zeynel Yesilay named a documentaries about North Cyprus and Turkey Endless Poem in 2008

Letters

• letters.org letter templates
• letters to the future
  • futureMe.org