Forty-Four Esolangs: The Art of Esoteric Code

by Daniel Temkin, Allison Parrish (foreword)

A riveting collection of one artist’s many approaches to esolangs—esoteric programming languages—showcasing the form’s limitless artistic potential. In Forty-Four Esolangs, Daniel Temkin challenges conventional definitions of language, code, and computer, showing the potential of esolangs—or esoteric programming languages—as pure idea art. The languages in this volume ask programmers to write code in the form of prayer to the Greek gods, or as a pattern of empty folders, or to type code in tandem with another programmer, each with one hand on the keyboard, their rhythm and synchrony signifying computer action. Temkin includes languages written over the past fifteen years, along with some designed especially for this book. Other pieces are left as prompts for the reader to simply consider or perhaps to implement on their own. Esolangs are a collaborative form. Each language is a complete world of thought, where esoprogrammers build on the work of esolangers to make new discoveries. The language Velato, for instance, asks programmers to write music as code; while the language creates constraints for the programmer, each programmer brings their own coding and musical sensibility to the language. Other pieces are pure poetic suggestion in the legacy of Yoko Ono’s event scores. These ask the programmer to, for example, follow the paths of the clouds over a single day and construct a language in response that uses those movements as code. Just as Ben Vautier claimed everything is art, this book blurs the lines between computation and everything else.

136 pages, ebook

Published September 23, 2025

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone interested in the oddities of communicating with computers; or who has been surprised by stranger behaviour of a programming language; or who has screamed at a screen to do what they want goddammit; or who has wondered whether it makes a difference if they say "please" when asking ChatGPT a question.

Temkin takes us through 44 mind-opening definitions of what it means to program, with examples of how these programming languages have been (can be? could be?) implemented. Through these examples, the reader is challenged in their assumptions about the expressiveness of language, and is shown a new media of creativity, in places where you would least expect it.

Highlights include software executed via praying to the gods, programs encoded entirely in the organisaton of files on your hard disk, code that destroys itself after use, and data that degrades with use, much as physical materials would.