Episodes from the History of Reading
The Reading Wall is composed of three massive
sixteen-foot-long walls that cut across the center of the exhibition
space. Stretched along each wall is a dense, colorful, printed collage
of statements about the history of reading. Mounted on a roller track
on each wall is a large, flat-screened, color plasma display that can
be moved back and forth along the length of each wall. The display rolls
directly over the printed collage. As the monitor moves, it presents
an electronic layer of information about key episodes in the history
of reading.
What's it about? Episodes from the History of Reading presents
in a very physical manner the history of reading and writing over the
past 25,000 years. The size of the exhibit is intended to show, in a
dramatic way, the long history of reading. The printed collage on the
wall is a modern and expressive exercise in typographic design. The
digital layer presents colorful photos, images and additional information
keyed precisely to the fixed layer below it.
What's the experiment? In this exhibit RED set out to explore
the possibilities of epigraphic (wall) writing for presenting complex
information. In particular RED was interested in laying out "temporal"
information across "physical" space. RED was also interested in playing
with the tension of public reading (everyone can see the big wall) with
private reading (the moving lens is operated by a single visitor). Lastly,
RED was interested in exploring the interplay between fixed printing
and dynamic digital words.
How does it work? The printed collage was laid out in Adobe
Illustrator using a wide range of fonts and printed using a Xerox large
format printer. The dynamic layer shown on the moving monitor was constructed
in Macromedia Director, an animation program. A special rotary sensor
is attached to the top of the monitor that tells the computer exactly
where it is along the wall as it moves. This information is sent to
the Director program that uses it to determine what to display on the
monitor.
