Well if we defined a database of terms (objects), applied some 'basic'
grammatical rules, then I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to come up with
a real compliment generator. Whether that is proof that something
bigger would work is really quite subjective.
If all we wanted to do was create a "painting" then the same could be
applied to graphical objects and some spatial rules. In fact that
would probably be easier than a compliment generator.
Yes it would be easier, because spatial position itself doesn't
contain much symbolic content in our culture. Whereas the "generated"
compliments have a semantically well-recognized form: "Your eyes are
so ... that ...." Thus spatial scrambling alone would also be almost
meaningless to us. It might fill people with a sense of chaos, since
our culture tends to assert its rationality by laying out everything
in Cartesian space.
I say "our culture" because if we were ancient Egyptians, we would
read an awful lot into the meanings of our objects based on how big
they are, and how high up they are in the scene.
A way around this dilemma may be to borrow common architectural motifs
from our own culture, and use those to give space some meaning. For
instance, if you are in an office building, the size of one's office
and the number of windows with a good view say a lot about your power
within the organization. Whereas a uniformly anonymous desk in a
typing pool also says a lot. I'm not sure how these ideas translate
directly into telling stories about stuff that people are interested
in... I haven't written anything about office complexes lately.
I suppose one could provide a Surrealist experience in an office
complex, by providing random metaphors of consumer goods, advertizing
slogans, and Marxist diatribes about finance-capital. Embellishing an
office with random societal symbols that exist in proximity to offices
and commerce might yield an interesting tableau.
And then you could always throw in the occasional barking chicken....
Cheers,
Brandon