Information
Jeffrey Shaw >
»Legible City«, 1989 - 1998
Co-Workers & Funding:
with Dirk GroeneveldSoftware: Gideon May and Lothar Schmitt
Hardware: Tat Van Vark, Charly Jungbauer and Huib Nelissen
In cooperation with the Ministry of Culture of the Netherlands
Jeffrey Shaw
Technology
Display
Varaiable: Computer Monitor, ProjectionInterface
Bicycle (Version 1989), Joystick (Version 1988)Software
wire-frame graphics
Descriptions & Essays
The Legible City was first presented in 1988 as wire-frame graphics that were interactively operated by a joystick. This constituted a prototype for later implementations of this work using a bicycle as the viewer interface and more advanced computer visualisation methods.
Jeffrey Shaw 02-11-2015
In The Legible City the visitor is able to ride a stationary bicycle through a simulated representation of a city that is constituted by computer-generated three-dimensional letters that form words and sentences along the sides of the streets. Using the ground plans of actual cities - Manhattan, Amsterdam and Karlsruhe - the existing architecture of these cities is completely replaced by textual formations written and compiled by Dirk Groeneveld. Travelling through these cities of words is consequently a journey of reading; choosing the path one takes is a choice of texts as well as their spontaneous juxtapositions and conjunctions of meaning.
The handlebar and pedals of the interface bicycle give the viewer interactive control over direction and speed of travel. The physical effort of cycling in the real world is gratuitously transposed into the virtual environment, affirming a conjunction of the active body in the virtual domain. A video projector is used to project the computer-generated image onto a large screen. Another small monitor screen in front of the bicycle shows a simple ground plan of each city, with an indicator showing the momentary position of the cyclist.
The Manhattan version (1989) of this work comprises eight separate fictional story lines in the form of monologues by ex-Mayor Koch, Frank Lloyd Wright, Donald Trump, a tour guide, a confidence trickster, an ambassador and a taxi-driver. Each story line has a specific letter colour so that the bicyclist can choose one or another to follow the path of a particular narration. In the Amsterdam (1990) and Karlsruhe (1991) versions all the letters are scaled so that they have the same proportion and location as the actual buildings which they replace, resulting in a transformed but exact representation of the actual architectural appearance of these cities. The texts for these two cities are largely derived from archive documents that describe mundane historical events there.
Jeffrey Shaw: Legible City, 02-11-2015, in: Archive of Digital Art In The Legible City the visitor is able to ride a stationary bicycle through a simulated representation of a city that is constituted by computer-generated three-dimensional letters that form words and sentences along the sides of the streets. Using the ground plans of actual cities - Manhattan, Amsterdam and Karlsruhe - the existing architecture of these cities is completely replaced by textual formations written and compiled by Dirk Groeneveld. Travelling through these cities of words is consequently a journey of reading; choosing the path one takes is a choice of texts as well as their spontaneous juxtapositions and conjunctions of meaning.
The handlebar and pedals of the interface bicycle give the viewer interactive control over direction and speed of travel. The physical effort of cycling in the real world is gratuitously transposed into the virtual environment, affirming a conjunction of the active body in the virtual domain. A video projector is used to project the computer-generated image onto a large screen. Another small monitor screen in front of the bicycle shows a simple ground plan of each city, with an indicator showing the momentary position of the cyclist.
The Manhattan version (1989) of this work comprises eight separate fictional story lines in the form of monologues by ex-Mayor Koch, Frank Lloyd Wright, Donald Trump, a tour guide, a confidence trickster, an ambassador and a taxi-driver. Each story line has a specific letter colour so that the bicyclist can choose one or another to follow the path of a particular narration. In the Amsterdam (1990) and Karlsruhe (1991) versions all the letters are scaled so that they have the same proportion and location as the actual buildings which they replace, resulting in a transformed but exact representation of the actual architectural appearance of these cities. The texts for these two cities are largely derived from archive documents that describe mundane historical events there.
Literature
Grau, Oliver. »The Recombinant Reality - Immersion and Interactive Image Spaces.« In Synthetic Times, edited by Fan Di'an and Zhang Ga, 72 -93. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Arns, Inke. »Interaktion, Partizipation, Vernetzung: Kunst und Telekommunikation.« http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themen/medienkunst_im_ueberblick/kommunikation/5/ [18.08.2015].
Schwarz, Hans-Peter, ed. Medien - Kunst - Geschichte. Anläßlich der Eröffnung des Museums für Neue Kunst, ZKM, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe am 18. Oktober 1997, Medienmuseum th ed.München, London, New York: Prestel Verlag, 1997.
Exhibitions & Events
1999
Exhibition :
1990
Festival :