自動化 || Automation is an experimental online poem that generates (and speaks aloud) surreal subway messages in English and Japanese. Inspired by the endlessly repeated automated announcements in Tokyo train and subway stations, it uses the syntax of the familiar announcement "１番線ドアが閉まります。ご注意ください。" ("The doors on platform 1 are closing. Please be careful").

Every 8 seconds, a script generates a new line by randomly selecting the platform number, subject, verb, and exhortation from a preset list. It displays the result on the screen and then generates a new line. Based on the user's language selection, browsers capable of speech synthesis will also read the text aloud in either English or Japanese.

Text for 自動化 || Automation was provided by the poet Andrew Campana, who also wrote the original code for randomly generating the statements.

I wrote the code for responsive page design, JQuery animations, speech synthesis (using Google's speech synthesis API), language switching, and HTML5 embedded video.