Re: [-empyre-] textual developments (a number of threads)

[steve guynup <exposedfield@yahoo.com>]

A few folks at Georgia Tech have also explored these
issues. (Many of you may have already seen these
projects)

Biomorphic Typography : Dianne Gromola
http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~gromala/art.htm

To be honest, I enjoyed the concept but found the
application lacking. Without a narrative in support of
the text, it feels like eye candy. Another issue
arises in that biofeedback devices are not current
able to denote emotional states. They note change in
heart rate etc., but not the motivation for the
change. Pleasure and pain look the same.  A further
issue arises when trying to make the project work with
a variety of people. Heart rates, moisture on the skin
etc all vary greatly between individuals.

Hubbub : Sha Xin Wei

http://www.gvu.gatech.edu/people/sha.xinwei/topologicalmedia/projects.html

He has several projects, Hubbub being the one that
most closely matches the issues being raised here. A
microphone pulls the casual conversations of onlookers
out of the ether and projects them on "screens".
Color, typography, and animation of the texts changes
in response to volume and tone.

Steve G

--- hazel smith <hazel.smith@canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> Thought I should add to my report from DAC that I
> missed a REALLY
> interesting paper by Noah Wardrip -Fruin which I
> read in the text version
> last night.  In the paper entitled "From
> Instrumental texts to Textual
> Instruments"  Wardrip Fruin discusses a number of
> fascinating and
> innovative projects in which he is engaged at Brown
> University.  They
> include a virtual reality project called "Screen":
> this begins with
> projected text about a person in a room of screens. 
> Words peel off from
> this projected text and whirl round the reader who
> can also hit the words
> so that they bounce back to the walls, sometimes
> taking up different
> spaces. Once a certain number of words has peeled
> off the world the words
> swirl round the reader and then collapse in the
> centre  of the VR chamber.
> 
> Another collaboration "Talking Cure" engages with
> the story of Anna O , a
> patient of both Freud and Joseph Breuer. In this
> piece the reader sits in a
> chair opposite a projection screen : in front of the
> chair is a video
> camera and microphone. The image of the person in
> the chair is transformed
> into a  "text mirror"  consisting of several layers
> of text : Anna's words,
> Breuer and Freud's words and Wardrip Fruin's words. 
> Talking  into the
> microphone also displaces Anna's layer of text,  and
>  words spoken into the
> microphone become part of the soundscape which also 
> includes recordings of
> Breuer's words, Anna's words and the author's words.
> 
> Wardrip Fruin  is also developing a project which
> involves a textual
> instrument for textual performance, which acts
> algorithmically on text and
> can be tuned in different ways. There is a lot of
> detail about this, and
> about the other projects I've mentioned, in the
> paper which you need to
> read! (You can buy a CD Rom of all the papers at the
> conference if you were
> not there)
> 
> Sounds great stuff
> 
> Hazel
> 
> 
> 
> Dr. Hazel Smith
> Senior Research Fellow
> School of Creative Communication
> Deputy Director
> University of Canberra Centre for Writing
> http://www.ce.canberra.edu.au/writing
> Editor of Inflect
> http://www.ce.canberra.edu.au/inflect
> University of Canberra
> ACT 2601
> phone 6201 5940
> More about my creative work at
> www.australysis.com
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre


=====
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