Here's an early tech demo for the pieces that will appear in the show; dynamically generated text. I'm curious how, or whether, they fit into our recent conversations. Got aura?
This one uses a single, limited text (actually the title of a Yo La Tengo album, which is the first thing that popped into my head). This one draws on a database, which for the moment consists only of seven quotes, each of which is something that was posted to this blog at some point. I kind of think the first one works better, seeing the same text reinvented over and over, but I'm not sure. I think, following on our recent conversations, that the effectiveness depends on how well you recognize the source text. The second version, database version, occasionally works well when recognizable bits of scripture jumble together; but the first one, using a single phrase, invents its own context; due to the limited amount of text being used, the viewer is immediately aware both of the re-invention and of the source text. That's my impression, anyway.
Now for the disclaimers; this isn't really how the final work will look. The idea is that these text blocks will more closely resemble large city regions, within an outline map; they'll be appearing and disappearing, re-filling the same space; and also "cutaways" will appear showing the supposed contents of those regions. Also, right now I'm imagining four different templates for dynamic maps, representing four different future cities: modular, monumental, expansive, pluralist. Here's a static mockup of the modular city; changing regions, made of text, with cutaways also appearing at random on top. In this mockup, the idea I'm working with is that the "regions" are made of text, and the "explanatory" labels write themselves in in that spirit writing stuff I did earlier.
Posted by seth at July 16, 2004 04:11 PM