The stein-machine was borne out of a criticism leveled against Gertrude Stein and her attempts to create a cubist poetry. critics argued that the linearity of reading made impossible cubism's project of representing multiple perspectives in a single moment. though Stein came quite close to fragmenting perspective with her use of repetition, syncopation and shifting verbal tenses, Andrew Zitcer felt that modern sampling technology could offer a hand in her cubist project. using a recording of her famous portrait of the cubist master Picasso, Zitcer sampled each poetic fragment. multiple layers of speech samples on a MIDI keyboard allow the participant to "play" her poem as a musical instrument, destroying the chronology of her original reading and opening the piece up to infinite multiple perspective.--Andrew Zitcer (2002)
Click here for the link to "stein dither filter" (an MP3 version of the project for the Painted Bride "sense data" exhibit). For more on Zitcer's project, see the sensedata site.