Monkeys make surprisingly terrible random-number generators

Back in 2002, artists at England's Plymouth University teamed up with Paignton Zoo to see if monkeys could write Shakespeare.

They gave six Sulawesi crested macaques (called Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan) computers, and observed their interactions with they keyboards. Mostly, the monkeys shit and pissed on them, but eventually they produced five pages of text, consisting mostly of the letter S, with small amounts of A, J, L and M. The five pages were bound into a limited edition of 100 copies, accompanied by photos of the authors, which sold for £25.

In a move that would not pass legal muster today, the project claimed copyright over the five pages in the names of the monkeys. Accordingly, I reproduce them below, as is fitting for a public domain work.

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Notes Towards the Complete Works of Shakespeare

[Plymouth University/Archive.org cache]

Monkeys Don't Write Shakespeare [AP/Wired/Archive.org cache]


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