DIVVY/dual.symposium.03 [Endo]

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Duration: 32 minutes and 13 seconds

Country: Japan

Language: Japanese

License: CC Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike

Genre: Instructional

Producer: NTT InterCommunication Center / NPO Gadago / Mozilla Japan

Director: Dominick Chen

Views: 587 (13 embedded)

Posted by: dominick on Apr 22, 2007

DIVVY/dual symposium at NTT ICC on 09.24.2006. Takumi Endo, DIVVY/dual's participating artist for 'TypeTrace', describes his past and present works.

Transcription and initial translation by:
- Ashley Rawlings
- Tomomi Sasaki
- Lena Oishi
- Chihiro Murakami
- Dominick Chen

Related links:
0] DIVVY/dual
1] TokyoArtBeat
2] NTT ICC
3] Mozilla Japan

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Video Transcription

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My name is Endo
Firstly, I will explain the software
and then talk about my position regarding today's topic.
was created by myself and the engineer, Matsuyama san
Matsuyama san is also a programmer and artist
I studied classical music, but now I mainly work on media art.
is a software that memorizes the way you type
For example, corrections, touch-ins, editing and so on
or how you write and re-write text is replayed identically, both temporally and textually.
The reason why I wanted to create this software is because
I wanted to capture the rut between a thought and its manifestation through media technology
and visualize the traces of thought processes.
I will now start the software.
This is the actual data that was exhibited last week in Ginza.
This is what I was typing in the first half.
It simply memorizes information like writing emails or texts, as is.
You can see all the mistakes so it's embarassing.
The font size depends on how long it took to write.
If you pause, the font gets bigger. This is how time is visualized.
Some people wrote some interesting things.
For example, this person wrote out the Japanese constitution by memory
You can fast-forward by using the slide below.
I found Tsubaki san's presentation about the history of Japanese writing revealing.
It's interesting to actually see our constant act of conversion.
Computers automatically use the previously selected conversion
so if you were writing a love-letter previously, those words would appear.
That's embarassing. In contrast to writing, sending, and receiving,
this work captures the trajectory of the original thinking behind the text.
Please see the 2 computers at the back if you're interested in seeing the software.
This is the screen that I was using just now.
This is what was displayed at the exhibition, and the left shows the list of comments.
Usually they are played randomly, but you can also select specific comments to play.
The right screen shows the text, and the floating screen is what was projected.
There were various comments, like people saying 'I'm here' when they came.
People know that the text will be distributed via a CC licence,
and the application itself is also open source.
Why did I come up with this?
I have been involved in a project called which relates to speech-languages
It is a system that lets you search the globe via random chains of speech. It's the spinning installation downstairs.
Currently, there are 6-7000 languages in the world.
For example, the French word 'Ca va' means hello, and 'saba' in Japan means fish.
When I was in France, I always thought of this fish when I heard 'ca va'.
I found it funny.
Apparently the same word means 'owl' in Russian, or 'elderly' in Sindhi
I thought that it would be interesting to make a phonetic dictionary.
If a word sounding like 'saba' exists in a minority language with only 200 active speakers
we might be curious about their habitat, lifestyle, culture, and politics.
I wanted to make an encyclopedia that brings out such curiosities.
The subtitle for this project is 'Serendipity Enhancer'
Around 50-90% of the 6000 languages mentioned are endangered, and will disappear in decades.
UNESCO and the library at Stanford University are currently archiving languages,
but my project links random words and information through similar sounds.
For example, if your name is 'Anne', and the word means 'sun' or 'breeze' in Africa
you may feel an affinity and one day actually visit that country.
Recently, I feel that this art creates such opportunities.
Please see it downstairs. Type in your name in the interface and similar sounding words will appear.
If you select 'Russian', the speaker will pronounce a similar word in Russian.
Matsuyama san from also created this technically complicated monitor.
Actually, I got the idea for when creating .
Back then, I thought of making a kinetic keyboard that physically moves.
A PC version of those automatic mini-pianos where the keys move along with the music.
I bought a stand-alone keyboard and tried it using electrical magnets.
I thought it would be weirdly intriguing, especially if it was a message sent from far away.
is an extension of this idea to simulate and reproduce the computing process.
We exhibited this for a week at Ginza's Space Kobo& Tomo, last week.
There were 3 laptops and a projector on autopilot and play mode, and another to actually type on.
Some people may feel self-conscious, but more people participated than we imagined.
I haven't read through all the comments yet, but we have been able to collect interesting data.
In future, I want fiction writers and critics to write 'stories' with this software.
If a famous writer types up their entire novel on , maybe we can show it at ICC.
Tracing their thoughts and writing processes would be interesting, although for the writer it takes courage.
I want to show this at galleries, or openly release it online and collect responses.
The text-based is an offshoot of the speech language-based .
Both are based on 'temporality'.
expresses the chronological sequence of text, phonetically.
Through research, I found that a linguistic scholar called Takao Suzuki once said
'Humans are a rare species that finds pleasure in rhythmically vocalizing words'
I'm sure many of you like karaoke.
Even now, I am speaking rhythmically.
In Takashi Tachibana's book 'Current Ape Studies', he says that gorillas sing
not because they want to mate or are hungry, but because they simply want to sing.
I read this in University and was shocked. When I studied music,
I thought that music was a human desire for expression. But I realized that music came before man,
and that going to karaoke or humming a tune fulfills our innate instinct to sing. I was deeply moved.
So I thought that the act of typing keys continuously also fulfills a certain desire.
I aim to cater to this.
Dominick mentioned the word 'Type-do' (art of typing) in a discussion,
in contrast to 'sho-do' (art of calligraphy). I love seeing people write on paper, and...
Sorry Endo san, we have to cut you off. Please go on to the general comments.
Okay. I'd like to add functions like email, blog, different playback speeds, normal editing functions,
and make it an extension to Firefox.
I'm thinking of distributing the files made through open source via Creative Commons.
I will now talk about my personal opinion, including this project.
First, about open source art.
There is various art based on democratic processes, but I'm not interested in them.
I think that getting the viewers involved in participatory art is also politically correct, but not my thing.
I also wonder about creating art that is viewer-friendly.
I prefer seeing craziness, nonsense, and self-indulgent, overwhelming emotion when I see art.
Now, the question of whether open source is possible or not.
My interests lie in whether you can find craziness and emotions within the varying structures.
For example, John Cage's work '4 minutes 33 seconds' may be perceived as open source art.
The classic rakugo 'sandai-banashi' (three-topic) piece 'Shibahama' too.
The sandai-banashi requires the speaker to improvise from 3 topics suggested by the audience. This is 'open'.
'Shibahama' is based on the topics 'drunkard', 'purse' and 'lawn beach'. Now it is regarded as a classic story.
Everyone always struggles with the punchline, but the audience enjoys the 'here/now'ness of it all.
This can also be considered as open source.
This reminds me of the famous paper-cutter, Shoraku Hayashiya.
He picks topics from conversations with people, and cuts while making jokes.
My keyword for open source art may be a sense of 'live'ness.
My next example is the activist/artist duo, The Yes Men.
They created an identical homepage to WTO's 'GATT.org', but the content is entirely contradictory.
They get a lot of emails from people who think that they are the real WTO. One day,
they received an invitation to a conference, and made a shocking presentation there.
They recorded the ordeal and made a documentary.
For example, at a Finnish textile trade meeting, they presented an erecting uniform
as the newest WTO solution.
Here, they hacked a BBC interview.
The reason why I introduced these works
is because the method of playing with large organizations like the WTO and hacking mass media
seems somewhat related to today's symposium.
With magazines like Shonen Jump, questionnaires filled by readers is reflected on the content.
It's a collaboration of sorts between the writer, the reader, and the editor.
But people don't realize this because they have a low sense of ownership.
We just discussed my project .
In terms of using the web openly to collect words and knowledge from around the world,
the keyword here is 'collaboration'.
To wrap up,
My interest lies in whether the crazy, overwhelming affect of art can still exist in an open structure.
The keywords here are liveness, collaboration, and social hacking.
We are currently examining these possibilities through and . Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Kusumi san first talked about fluxus and the current remix culture, contemporary art and internet culture.
Tsubaki san talked about Web 2.0, and his activities regarding the correlation between society and art.
We hadn't talked much about media art,
so we asked Endo san and Matsuyama san to feature their work.
Whether this can be categorized as media art is open to discussion though.
Endo san mentioned that his initial vision consisted of a moving keyboard.
This work shows the progression of the realization of this vision.
In other words, by collecting text written by visitors
which visualizes the physical or mental trajectories behind each word
is in itself a platform, a software.
This content will have a CC licence and is free.
The software will also be open to the public with a GPL licence, shortly.
How does the work stand? Where is the author?
The work provokes such discussions.
Kusumi san is here with us today.
Can you tell us your thoughts about the various practices of writing text?
Did you read my comment?
I wrote about stuttering.
Linguistic disfluency.
Usually you don't realize that typing is a reflection of your own text-writing brain.
When the typing stammers, that's your thinking process that's stammering.
I was taken aback that such processes are reflected through this work.
Thank you.
Yamagata san, you have yet to experience this software, but please offer your thoughts.
How will the contents be perfected through this software.
Text is a very simple media. If you cut the text up, or replay it chronologically,
both the reader and writer's attitude towards the text will shift.
Please offer your thoughts and suggestions about Endo san's presentation.
I think the changing font size depending on time is extremely interesting.
Until recently, Natsume Souseki's handwritten text was more expensive if it had corrections.
It's an attempt to regain the aura of the text.
Well, how about selling an email that includes the Yamagata PGP signature?
You probably won't buy it, right? It can be duplicated.
I can duplicate any text files on my hard drive oo.
One issue here is aiming for something uneven, rather than flat or unoriginal.
You position yourself depending on how you express your originality.
So then, I think about whether I can create a one-off file that contains one author's entire thoughts.
In a sense, this tracks back from the surface text to the core thoughts, the source of the text.
It's a different concept from the flat, all-access idea of open source.
Regarding how to clarify the thoughts behind the text.
Almost half of those thoughts are not conveyed in the text.
If you take a Freudian view of why you always make the same mistake when converting words,
it might be because I was once abused by my father, and this prevents me from typing the word 'fridge'.
Or else, I have yet to clarify my thoughts in my head. It's an interesting method to explore creativity.
And interestingly, it focuses on uniqueness rather than flat, free-for-all accessibility.
If we refine it, perhaps we can sell it one day.
Thank you very much.

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