Summary:
Jeffrey Shaw’s “Legible City” is an interactive art installation that requires active, physical participation of its viewers. To make the installation function, a “rider” sits on a stationery bicycle, pedals, and navigates through simulated city streets and architectural structures made of letters, words, and sentences that are projected on a large screen. In this manner, the viewer both rides and reads as she navigates through this text-based virtual space. Requiring as it does the active, embodied participation of the reader/rider, Shaw’s “Legible City” provides a very interesting, very visible expression and enactment of reading as a fully embodied and physical activity in which the human body is well integrated into its surrounding environment. (more…)

Summary:
As documents of any kind increasingly come in digital form, our reading habits change. Printing out documents on paper is still a common practice at the moment, but will cease to be so as better and more convenient devices for reading digital data come into existence. Reasons for this change include less effort for transport and printing, as well the trend towards overcoming text-only modalities. When ebook readers first appeared in 2000, they were unsuccessful, mainly because they were inconvenient. The iPod, originally marketed as an mp3 player, has the capability to display digital documents and combines this potential with various other features like audio, video and hypertext, which makes it a convenient and flexible accessory that may meet plenty of our reading needs. (more…)

Online tool that provides its users with a broad overview of types, styles, and information on the culture of medieval writing from 400-1500 A.D.

“Medieval Writing” showcases images from many types of documents including manuscripts, legal, administrative and papal documents; the website provides an in-depth analysis of each type of document and its uses during the medieval period. Secondly, “Medieval Writing” offers paleography lessons so its users can become proficient in the various book hands and document hands used from the 6th to the 16th Centuries. (From Alison Walker’s research report.)

Starter Links: Medieval Writing Website

Transliteracies Research Report By Alison Walker

Summary:
The website “Medieval Writing: History Heritage and Data Source” provides its users with a broad overview of types, styles, and information on the culture of medieval writing from 400-1500 A.D. “Medieval Writing” showcases images from many types of documents, including manuscripts, legal, administrative and papal documents; the website provides an in-depth analysis of each type of document and its uses during the medieval period. Secondly, “Medieval Writing” offers paleography lessons so its users can become proficient in the various book hands and document hands used from the 6th to the 16th Centuries. (more…)

Online book-tracking service that allows people to enter a “collective library” on the Internet.

“Bibliophil allows its users to keep track of their books in a customized library with public/private library security available. Users can create Buddies with trust relationships, recommend books to buddies, and keep track of recommendations. Query their library and sort by title, author, rating, date read, etc. filter by author, unrated books, unread, reviewed on loan, wish lists, and for sale. Users can also export available via Excel (CSV) and have PDA and Mobile access to their libraries.” (From Bibliophil.org.)

Starter Links: Bibliophil.org | Answers.com take on bibliophil.org as a social library

Searchable multimedia version of Beowulf.

”’The Electronic Beowulf Project’ is an image-based CD-ROM edition of Beowulf, the great Old English poem, which survives in only one manuscript: British Library Cotton Vitellius A. xv. The CD is a full-color digital facsimile of Beowulf, its associated texts, and glossaries. Future editions will include illuminations from contemporary manuscripts and external links to medieval and Anglo-Saxon resource sites.” (From Donna Beth Ellard’s Research Report.)

Starter Links: The Electronic Beowulf Project

Transliteracies Research Report By Donna Beth Ellard

Searchable, digital facsimile of the Exeter Book.

“Digital images of the Exeter Book were produced in 1996, and from these images, a “virtual manuscript” has been produced. “The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry” is edited and compiled by Bernard J. Muir and Nick Kennedy. This program is a CD set that is scheduled for production in March 2006. The CD will contain interactive facsimiles, a page viewer, codicological report, historical and cultural materials, and audio readings of the poems. (From Donna Beth Ellard’s Research Report.)

Starter Links: EVellum’s description of the project

Transliteracies Research Report By Donna Beth Ellard

Considers the implications of Marey’s graphic method as a part of the greater discourse of signification and writing systems.

“The discourse of graph may be considered to be a micro-discourse, a series of signifying practices that loosely–perhaps even unconsciously–organizes meaning not from the standpoint of a unifying discourse such as science or theology that organizes knowledge from the outside in but rather signifies a particular episteme from the inside out. The word and suffix graph appears in the names of many new technologies in the middle and late nineteenth century: photography, cinematography, cardiography, phonautograph, graphophone, heliography, telegraphy, ideograph, phonograph, seismograph, myography, etc. ...Marey’s graphic method modernized the study of physiology by helping to displace quasi-mystical theories of vitalism with a positivistic understanding of the human body. As writing, the indexical traces produced by means of the graphic method evidence a radical cultural transformation of the status of writing from transcendent signifying practice to the machinic writing of life based not upon a higher power but rather the movements of the body as machine. The graphic method takes part in a larger cultural and epistemic project of the scientific secularization of writing and inscription.” (From James J. Hodge’s Research Report.)

Starter Links and References:
Marta Braun’s. Picturing Time: The Work of Etienne-Jules Marey (1830-1904) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992) | François Dagognet’s Etienne-Jules Marey: A Passion for the Trace (1987), trans. Robert Galeta with Jeanine Herman (New York: Zone Books, 1992).

Transliteracies Research Report By James J. Hodge

Summary:
The aim of this entry is twofold: to describe a field of discourse that located around the protean status of the word and suffix graph in latter half of the nineteenth century, and to instantiate that discourse through a consideration of Etienne-Jules Marey’s méthode graphique [graphic method]. The discourse of graph may be considered to be a micro-discourse, a series of signifying practices that loosely–perhaps even unconsciously–organizes meaning not from the standpoint of a unifying discourse such as science or theology that organizes knowledge from the outside in but rather signifies a particular episteme from the inside out. The word and suffix graph appears in the names of many new technologies in the middle and late nineteenth century: photography, cinematography, cardiography, phonautograph, graphophone, heliography, telegraphy, ideograph, phonograph, seismograph, myography, etc. Beyond recognizing graph as a facile gesture of nomenclature, this entry argues that its prevalence signifies a culturally and historically specific micro-discourse with deep implications for the study of writing as such in the broader media ecology of the late nineteenth century. Marey’s graphic method represents a meta-example of this micro-discourse. Marey’s graphic method modernized the study of physiology by helping to displace quasi-mystical theories of vitalism with a positivistic understanding of the human body. As writing, the indexical traces produced by means of the graphic method evidence a radical cultural transformation of the status of writing from transcendent signifying practice to the machinic writing of life based not upon a higher power but rather the movements of the body as machine. The graphic method takes part in a larger cultural and epistemic project of the scientific secularization of writing and inscription. (more…)

Summary:
The Exeter Dean and Chapter MS 3501, or “The Exeter Book,” is the oldest of four collections of Anglo-Saxon poetry. It is believed to have been produced in southwest England, probably between 965 and 975 (Muir 1).

Digital images of the Exeter Book were produced in 1996, and from these images, a “virtual manuscript” has been produced. “The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry” is edited and compiled by Bernard J. Muir and Nick Kennedy and produced in July 2006. It contains interactive facsimiles, a page viewer, codicological report, historical and cultural materials, and short audio readings of selected poems. (more…)

Summary: “Electronic Beowulf Project” is an image-based CD-ROM edition of Beowulf, the great Old English poem, which survives in only one manuscript: British Library Cotton Vitellius A. xv. The CD is a full-color digital facsimile of Beowulf, its associated texts, and glossaries. Future editions will include illuminations from contemporary manuscripts and external links to medieval and Anglo-Saxon resource sites. (more…)

Summary:
Founded in late 2005, Inform.com is an online news synthesizer that allows its users to design and customize “news channels” according to their individual interests. While there are many sites that provide access to multiple news sources, such sites frequently rely upon RSS (really simple syndication) feeds for the bulk of their information. Inform.com is distinct because it actively crawls each news item it hosts in order to more effectively categorize and sort its contents. While Inform.com initially received some very critical reviews from the digerati at large, it has since ironed out many bugs and continues to refine its interface. At the time of this writing, Inform.com seems to be generating positive feedback, gaining momentum, and remains in its beta testing phase. (more…)

“6. Illuminated matter or work; a picture in an illuminated manuscript, an illumination. In early use also: the action or process of rubricating letters or of illuminating a manuscript.” (From the OED.n.6)

“3. A sheet of paper printed on one side only, forming one large page.” (From the OED.n.)

Summary:
MySpace, as one of the top five most popular English-language websites in the world, is an increasingly influential part of teen popular culture in North America. As of March 2006, MySpace was more popular than the websites of CNN, The New York Times, and Amazon, and – unlike “the news” – MySpace embodies an emerging breed of Internet communication in which individuals both create and consume content, freely blend text, images, video and audio, and easily transition between online and real-world social interaction. (more…)

“A leaf of paper (in OE. called bóc, BOOK); a legal document or ‘deed’ written (usually) upon a single sheet of paper, parchment, or other material, by which grants, cessions, contracts, and other transactions are confirmed and ratified.” (From the OED.n1)

“1. Paper, parchment, or other writing material designed to be reusable after any writing on it has been erased. b. In extended use: a thing likened to such a writing surface, esp. in having been reused or altered while still retaining traces of its earlier form; a multi-layered record.” (From the OED.n.A,1-2)

“1. a. A piece of animal skin, esp. from a sheep or goat, dressed and prepared as a surface for writing; a scroll or roll of this material; a manuscript or document written on this.” (From the OED.n.I,1)

“1.The book containing the service of the Mass for the whole year; a mass-book. 2. A Roman Catholic book of devotions, esp. when illuminated; an illuminated book of hours, etc.” (From the OED.n1.I,1-2)

A book printed using moveable type prior to the year 1501 AD.

7-8th century stone cross in Ruthwell, just south of Dumfries, Scotland. Latin and Runic inscriptions as well as pictorial images on each face of the cross.

A manuscript from which another is copied.

“A book containing a set or collection of antiphons.” (From the OED.n.)

“I. 1. The Book of Psalms, as one of the books of the Old Testament b. A translation or particular version (prose or metrical) of the Book of Psalms c. A copy of, or a volume containing, the Psalms, esp. as arranged for liturgical or devotional use.” (From the OED.n.II.1, b-c)

An illuminated manuscript used primarily from the 13th through 16th centuries; a personal prayer book for the laity to abide by the Christian church’s daily protocol of devotional prayer.

“6. a. The embellishment or decoration of a letter or writing with bright or luminous colours, the use of gold and silver, the addition of elaborate tracery or miniature illustrations, etc.: see ILLUMINATE v. 8. b. with pl. The designs, miniatures, and the like, employed in such decoration.” (From the OED.n.6,a-b)

“1. a. Antiq. An instrument made of metal, bone, etc., having one end sharp-pointed for incising letters on a wax tablet, and the other flat and broad for smoothing the tablet and erasing what is written. 1. Also applied to similar instruments in later use.” (From the OED.n.1,a)

“A word inserted between the lines or in the margin as an explanatory equivalent of a foreign or otherwise difficult word in the text; hence applied to a simliar explanatory rendering of a word given in a glossary or dictionary. Also, in a wider sense, a comment, explanation, interpretation. Often used in a sinister sense: A sophistical or disingenuous interpretation. b. A collection of such explanations, a glossary; also, an interlinear translation of, or series of verbal explanations upon, a continuous text. 2. A poetical composition in which a stanza of some well-known poem is treated as a text for amplification, each of the successive stanzas of the ‘gloss’ being made to end with one of the lines or couplets of the text.” (From OED.n.1-2)

“A writer; one whose business is writing. In various specific or limited applications; 3. Used as the official designation of various public functionaries performing secretarial duties. 4. a. One who writes at another’s dictation; an amanuensis. Obs. 5. A copyist, transcriber of manuscripts; now esp. the writer of a particular MS. copy of a classical or mediæval work.” (From the OED.n1.1, 3-5)

“A writing-room; spec. the room in a religious house set apart for the copying of manuscripts.” (from the OED.n.)

MUVEES: Multi-User Virtual Environment Experiential Simulator

“MUVEES are an engaging way to improve educational outcomes using museum-related multimedia and virtual environments for teaching and learning science. The purpose of this research project, funded by the National Science Foundation, is to build a multi-user virtual environment experiential simulator (MUVEES) in order to find an engaging way to teach science in a manner that draws on curiosity and play. The environment is enriched with digitized historical museum artifacts to enhance middle school students’ motivation and learning about science.” (From the MUVEES web site.)

Starter Links: MUVEES | An abstract from Museums and the Web | Paper from the IEEE Virtual Reality Conference 2003 | Related article

Digitized objects that re-configure text, sound, and images from different originals, in order to create a new, sometimes satirical or subversive, art object.

“The basic concept behind fan-made MV (music videos) is to match the rhythm (and lyrics, if using a song) of a piece of one music with the pictures from a different visual object, such that the music and pictures vitalize each other, in order to initiate a fresh mutual understanding. The resulting hybrid work offers a distinctly different art object from either of the original pieces, one that can function paradoxically as both as satire and homage.” (From Weiwei Ren’s Supplemental Research.)

Starter Links: www.youtube.com

Supplemental Research By Weiwei Ren

(created 2/21/06; version 1.0)
[Status: Draft]

Related Categories:

Original Object for Study description

Summary:
The basic concept behind fan-made MV (music videos) is to match the rhythm (and lyrics, if using a song) of a piece of one music with the pictures from a different visual object, such that the music and pictures vitalize each other, in order to initiate a fresh mutual understanding. The resulting hybrid work offers a distinctly different art object from either of the original pieces, one that can function paradoxically as both as satire and homage.

To fully understand the future of this burgeoning global phenomenon, many more questions need to be raised and addressed—especially questions related to issues of copyright, collective and individual authorship, and digital appropriation and reconfiguration of analog works. (more…)

Summary:
“Mediawork Pamphlets pair leading writers and contemporary designers to explore art, literature, design, music, and architecture in the context of emergent technologies and rapid economic and social change.” Published by the MIT Press, Mediawork Pamphlets “are ‘zines for grown-ups, commingling word and image, enabling text to thrive in an increasingly visual culture.” “Mediawork Pamphlets transform private theory into public discourse, visual experimentation into cultural intervention” and strive to “launch these hybrids out into a greater public” (Mediawork Website).

Peter Lunenfeld is Editorial Director of this innovative series that is inspired by such artistic collaborations as Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore’s The Medium is the Massage and War and Peace in the Global Village. The pamphlets are small, beautifully designed objects in which art and theory intersect. (more…)

Online tool that allows user easy access to a dictionary of medieval Latin abbreviations.

“Abbreviationesâ„¢, the first electronic dictionary of medieval Latin abbreviations, is a powerful database designed foruse in both learning and teaching of medieval Latin paleography. Abbreviationesâ„¢ is also a highly useful reference and research tool. It consists of a database (Main Dictionary) and a database application(Abbreviationesâ„¢) — a mature, robust, and reliable program, suitable for everyone from the novice to the expert. An electronic dictionaryis immeasurably more effective than a printed dictionary in terms of speed and efficiency. Furthermore, our database currently comprises over 70,000 entries, nearly five times as many as you would find in the printed dictionaries by Walther, Chassant, De la Braña, Cappelli,and Pelzer combined. Thanks to annual updates and enhancements, theMain Dictionary will continue to grow steadily. Abbreviationesâ„¢ is a standard reference work and reflects the state of contemporaryscholarship.” (from the Abbreviations web site.)

Starter Links: Abbreviationes | Technical Information | Related Newsletter Article that mentions how “computers might actually help to make academics more productive” through this tool”

Related Categories:

Summary:
Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful (hereafter Enquiry) was published in 1757 and a second revised and expanded edition of it in 1759. (more…)

Summary:
Medley prints, similar to a contemporary collage, were mixed-media objects that enjoyed an indeterminate period of popularity in the visual culture of eighteenth century England. One of the intriguing aspects of medley prints is that so little information survives about them and correspondingly little contemporary scholarship has been published about them. An exception is Mark Hallett’s “The Medley Print in Early Eighteenth-Century London,”? and I appropriate his description of a particular engraving called The May Day Country Mirth to formulate a workable definition of the genre of the medley print, which, Hallett writes, “. . . for clarity, fuses the mechanics of trompe-l’oeil with a sustained programme of representational juxtapositions and overlap. By means of an almost microscopically exact process of pictorial imitation, the engraver attempts to persuade us, however momentarily, that we are gazing at a scattering of printed and drawn objects, thrown together in front of our eyes. . . . The medley print . . . was a pictorial genre that meshed together a variety of materials circulating in graphic culture in order to produce a modern, hybrid art form”? (214 – 235). Although there is little scholarship on medley prints, there are a number of surviving examples, upon a few of which I will attempt quick readings today. (more…)

Mixed-media objects, similar to a contemporary collage, that enjoyed an indeterminate period of popularity in the visual culture of eighteenth century England.

“One of the intriguing aspects of medley prints is that so little information survives about them and correspondingly little contemporary scholarship has been published about them. An exception is Mark Hallett’s “The Medley Print in Early Eighteenth-Century London.” Although there is little scholarship on medley prints, there are a number of surviving examples.” (From Gerald Egan’s Research Report.)

Starter Links and References:
Mark Hallett’s article, “The Medley Print in Early Eighteenth-Century London,” in Art History

Transliteracies Research Report By Gerald Egan