I am working on a few other code-based playthings focused on word games and language constraints. They foreground my interest in intuitive, constrained, chance-based composition and a deep desire for collaborative writing. I am calling these invitations and games petite and lo-fi-coded playthings. I am basically creating homework assignments for myself because I have always been that person (— like that time in elementary school when I thought my teachers were not assigning enough homework so I *publically* asked for more homework and went on to literally create my own worksheets…needless to say, I was not a popular child!)

The first writing constraint system I (consciously) created was in the summer of 2020 when I was doing a short-term residency at Tiger Strikes Asteroid.

Designing what I call petite, lo-fi-coded playthings (both simple code and more analog versions) is a reminder that, at their core, these playthings invite other possibilities: what other forms are possible? How can the constraint offered open us up? I believe unpredictability can be provided as a language of liberation. By unpredictability, I mean the welcome disruption of the expected program, the pleasurable unfamiliarity with the unfolding part of the story, and the inability to name what now exists, because no language can even begin to capture it. I do not think liberation is as simple as breaking syntactic structure; however, the analogy of a writing system offers a schema of “waywardness” (as both Emily Dickinson and Sadiya Hartman discuss) and internal rebellion.