Random Rhetoric

“Random Rhetoric” assembles democracy with Epicurus’ swerve (παρέκκλιση parénklisis; Latin: clinamen); an idea that describes the slight deviation and randomness of atoms from their “ordinary” pathways. Ioannis Melanitis’ works on democracy refer to a geometrization of the art of oratory and its processes through the randomization of information: “Political speech and philosophy emerging from machines and computers render humans to mere ‘viewers’ or envisage new roles in society”. He anticipates that “even the official state structures of future dialectics may be derived from self-programming computers”.
Epicurus (341–270 BC) founded his school as a counterpoint to Plato’s Academy in a Garden outside Athens, where he taught philosophy until his death. “Random Rhetoric“ acts as a metaphor of an epicurean garden, a dynamic place where logos, speech and dialectics are remodeled with the use of machines. The digital environment serves as the main forum where interactive code-based works like “The Oratory Machine” (a computer programmed in real-time speech synthesis) participate in a philosophical dialogue with the public, reshaping the art of rhetoric in some cases through the pretencing of intelligent dialogue. Attributing fraud to machines is something intertwined with the structural elements of their construction; not accidentally, in etymologies of techne (= art), the entries art and deceit derive from a common root.