Jos SmoldersTextuur 5 [ Automatergon ]

My inspiration for this fifth instalment of Textuur came from the poetry of Greta Monach (1928–2018). Though largely forgotten today, Monach was a pioneering Dutch artist who forged her own path in the fields of computer-generated composition, microtonal singing, and sound poetry.

During the 1960s and 1970s, she collaborated with composer Gottfried Michael Koenig, assisting with programming for his composition courses in the Netherlands. This work, combined with her fascination with sound poetry, inspired her to experiment with computer-generated texts. Using the mainframe computer at Utrecht University, she developed poems based on sets of instructions that she fed into the machine. She called this new form of writing “compoetry”, while the individual printed poems became known as “automatergons”.

Initially, these automatergons — or, more precisely, αúτοματέργα — consisted of simple sequences of randomly generated words. Over time, however, Monach expanded her approach by instructing the computer to distribute words across the page in clusters. As a result, the poems gained a striking visual dimension: the constellations of seemingly meaningless words transformed the page into a compositional space, enriching the works beyond their textual content alone.

Textuur 5 began with my own automatergon, generated online using the same parameters and instructions that Greta Monach employed in her compoetry experiments. The resulting poem (see front cover) was recited by an AI-generated voice, and this recording became the Collection. Although many versions were produced, this release presents seven selected permutations. These are binaural mixdowns of the original seventh-order ambisonic compositions.

I chose to incorporate the sounds of the Collection directly into the Permutations. Consequently, there are no separate Collection tracks on this disc.

This album is part of the Textuur Project, an ongoing series exploring methods of stripping sounds from their original context and fragmenting them into ever-smaller particles. Through this process, sounds become detached from their sources and severed from what they once represented. The central question driving the project is where representation gives way to abstraction: at what point does a sound cease to signify its origin and become something else entirely?

Textuur 5 was composed and produced as an ambisonics project. The total suite consists of 12 parts. These 7 tracks have been downmixed to binaural format. Headphone listening is recommended. Work on Textuur 5 started late 2024. The master for this album was delivered on June 24th, 2026.

Thank you for inspiration, Greta Monach. Thank you for rigorous feedback, Roel Meelkop.

Program your own Automatergon at automatergon.emielvanmiltenburg.nl

Press-release