SLOGANTRON is a randomized slogan generator residing on the Maxx Klaxon web site, built using HTML and Javascript. It echoes Dada collage and Soviet Constructivism in visual style. Like Burroughs’ cut-ups, it functions as a mechanism for the creation of found poetry from preselected ingredients, but in a tone intended to satirize the rhetoric of authoritarian command.

SLOGANTRON is powered by a program that selects 4 random numbers each time the page is reloaded. These numbers are used to specify word images for the 4 slots. Each slot will display 1 of 26 different words. The automatically created slogans always follow a verb-adjective-adjective-noun structure. A total of 456,976 distinct slogans can be generated using the system.

The phrases output by the program are freighted with references to propaganda posters, digital pop culture, dystopia, oppression, and revolt. But over time it becomes clear that the slogans defy clear rational interpretation… and some slogans seem to contradict others. Ultimately, the utterances of SLOGANTRON are mockeries of official exhortation: mechanized and emptied of meaning.