On January 5th 2019 Merri Cyr installed her digital installation ‘Great American Novel Part 2’ at the New Bedford Whaling Museum during the 48 hour annual Moby Dick reading marathon. During the event over 60 users created word sequences using a user friendly application designed by Merri which rearranges the original text of Moby Dick to form new passages, and additionally allows participants to alter word order as well. Merri selected the best word sequences and later used the Google “SEARCH” (algorithm) to generate the images used in the book layout below . Both the words and images were created in part by Herman Melville, participants, and an algorithmic word generator.





Click Moby to see the results of my thesis project- a generative social practice work which combines the text of Moby Dick, New Bedford Whaling museum participants and an algorithm