Sherry Chandler

Born Magazine

Speaking of collaborations in art, my friend Donna who sends me many diverting ways to fritter my days, has sent me a link to Born magazine. It has everything: animation, interactive poetry, altered books, and a sort of Myst-like mysticism.

I suggest you while away an hour or so at Born. And check out the Birthing Room where you will find news of collaborative projects such as Think Tank:

With a deposit of 25 cents, you have the opportunity to determine future foreign policy decisions for the United States of America.

The Think Tank consists of a system of 24 bobbing chicken toys that trigger random pulses in the form of MIDI signals. These signals are routed to solenoid plungers attached to the keys of an IBM Selectric typewriter. Custom software translates these signals into readable output from the typewriter.

To achieve this, every word from all of President George W. Bush’s public radio addresses has been entered into a database. This source text is analyzed and the spatial relationships between individual words are referenced, producing a simplistic, yet highly effective “grammar” that will govern the typewriter’s output.

The initial chicken signal will cause the software to choose one random word from the source text. At the next signal, the software will choose another random word, but one that appeared adjacent to the previous word in the source text. The process repeats, creating convincing, readable text most of the time, and completely frightening outbursts occasionally.

Collaborators:

Trimpin: kinetic sculptor
Seb Chevrel: visual programmer

Update: from Born Magazine’s editor: FYI,the Birthing Room is not usually news but experimental projects exploring interactivity, narrative design, and other storytelling techniques; the current Birthing Room features our special “off-line” storytelling exhibit on storytelling, but will return to our regular “online” programming in the next issue.

Possibly related posts:

Kudzu Magazine

“Born Fighting”

“Bukowski: Born Into This”

Born Fighting, Redux

Pink Tank

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