Perl poetry projects: London.pl, War.pl

These are based on a cultural critique of software practice by treating code as a particular form of literary text. They use Perl code to describe some of the mechanisms behind atrocities in recent social history, many of them inspired by the poetry of William Blake. Many of these texts were distributed on mailing lists over 2003 including lists in both the art and scientific communities.

"London.pl" is Perl poem which transcribes William Blake's 19th century poem "London" into program code. Written in 2001, it is one of very few artistically advanced Perl poems written since the invention of Perl poetry in the early 1990s.