The 3A Paper Generator (i.e. Academic Academic Academic Paper Generator) extends Doug Zongker's seminal "Chicken Chicken Chicken: Chicken Chicken" (2002) into the realm of generative literature. By automating the production of semantically void yet formally impeccable academic papers, it transforms sophisticated academic publishing tools into a one-click generator of institutional absurdity.
Sample parameters for the 3A Paper Generator
Sample generated paperEach generated paper maintains perfect academic form—abstract, methodology, citations — while containing nothing but iterations of a single word. This reduction exposes the scaffolding of academic language and its ritualistic nature.
Context & Inspiration
In 2002, Doug Zongker's "Chicken Chicken Chicken: Chicken Chicken" emerged as a masterful critique of academic publishing. The paper, containing only the word "chicken" arranged in perfect academic format, was later presented at a scientific conference where Zongker delivered it with complete scholarly seriousness—transforming the piece into performance art.
Chicken Chicken Chicken: Chicken Chicken (2002)
Doug Zongker presenting 'Chicken Chicken Chicken' at AAAS Humor Session, 2007Three years later, David Mazières and Eddie Kohler created "Get me off Your Fucking Mailing List" in response to predatory academic spam. Their paper—repeating its title throughout while maintaining scholarly structure—became an unexpected icon of academic resistance when it was actually accepted by a predatory journal in 2014.
Get me off Your Fucking Mailing List (2014)
Figure 1 from Get me off Your Fucking Mailing ListThe 3A Paper Generator takes these manual interventions into automated territory. By treating the academic paper as a medium and LaTeX formatting as an artistic material, it strips away the technical complexity of scholarly publishing. The project reduces the sophisticated typesetting and layout process into a simple interface where content becomes purely ceremonial—a repeated word flowing through the rigid templates of academic authority.
The IAAA Journal
The IAAA Journal parodies prestigious academic publications through its naming convention while serving as an archive of machine-generated literary experiments. Each paper demonstrates how academic publishing's sophisticated tools can be reduced to vessels for pure repetition.
Exhibition
2021, Unlinked, Interactive Media Arts, NYU Shanghai, Shanghai
