socius digitus || Bits and Atoms

emo-type sneakpreview:

in Cooperation with Reinhard Klapfer

Experiments in computational typography at the MIT Media Laboratory
by John Maeda dating back to 1997.

http://www.maedastudio.com/

Exhibiton by Juerg Lehni and Alex Rich:
at institute of contemporary arts - london, england
http://www.ica.org.uk

jürg lehni and alex rich are two designers who are on the bleeding edge of the intersection of technology and graphic design. ‘a recent history of writing and drawing’ is the result of an ongoing collaboration between the two designers. they share a fascination with the role of technology in design and are intent on exploring this interest through the creation of new tools and machines. this exhibition features a number of their creative machines developed to enable writing and drawing through new methods and techniques.

http://www.designboom.com/contemporary/writinganddrawing.html

word is great…

The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.

written by Peter Mitterhofer in 1869 on Modell Wien

Found this a while ago in a tinkerershop. Made me think about linking input devices to the writing device keyboard and creating new ways of interaction between text, the writer and the recipient.
A lie detector is a very fascinating phenomena. Makes you think if you would actually want you use it? And in case you do - would you trust the technology and judge a person by the result? psychological dilema…

“A page of type is one of the most abstract pieces of communication I can imagine. Symbols of the most ancient origin can be put together in ways that stimulate they eye, through pattern, and the mind, through thought.”
—Warren Chappell, A Short History of the Printed Word, 1970

“By the meaningless sign linked to the meaningless sound we have built the shape and meaning of Western man.”
—Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy, 1962

“Es war einmal ein King, das jeden Tag größer wurde,
und in den ersten Gegenstand, den es betrachtete,
verwandelte es sich.”
Walt Whitman

aus Sherry Turkle - “Leben im Netz”

“Im Internet kommt der Widerstreit zwischen Technologie und unserem Gefühl für persönliche Identität am deutlichsten zum Vorschein.”

nice work by projekttriangle

Graphology is the study and analysis of handwriting especially in relation to human psychology. In the medical field, it can be used to refer to the study of handwriting as an aid in diagnosis and tracking of diseases of the brain and nervous system. The term is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to forensic document examination.

Although graphology had some early support in the scientific community such as Fluckinger, Tripp & Weinberg(1961) , Lockowandte (1976) and Nevo(1986), the results of most of the recent surveys on the ability for graphology to assess personality and job performance have been negative. Still its a quite interesting field of research.

Kategorien zur Deutung von Handschrift (german):
- Gesamtgröße der Schrift
- Gleichmäßigkeit der Schrift
- Zeilenabstand der Schrift
- Höhe der Schrift
- Verbundenheit der Buchstaben
- der Wortabstand
- Enge und Weite der Schriftzüge
- Druckstärke und Sattheit (+ Schreimaterial)
- die Neigung der Schrift
- Größe der Mittellagen zu Ober- und Unterlängen
- Größe des Anfangsbuchstaben gegenüber den anderen Buchstaben
- in welcher Höhe beginnt der Großbuchstabe
- die Bereicherung oder Vereinfachung der Schrift
- die Buchstaben n und m
- die From der großen A
- die punkte des ü
- der i-Punkt
- die Schlaufe des kleinen g
- die Unterschrift
- andere Merkmale der Schrift

link wikipedia.org
link graphologies.de

“Ogni libro è letto ma ogni letto non è anche un libro.”
Bruno Munari

doing some experimenting with the Fraunhofer engine for vision based emotion recognition.
works quite well i think…

Article by Golan Levin on Computer Vision

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The project Fühlometer was also done with the fraunhofer engine:
a gigantic smiley is projected on a large surface over Berlin - displaying the average emotion of berlin citizens; measured with cams all over the city and analized with the fraunhofer software, updated in real-time.

finally - i put some of my films on vimeo.
there is:
- one short film (Ludo)
- one documentary (for sale)
- one music video (Plastic City)
- two videos documenting interactive projects (Wellips, Beam Beam)

feel free to check them out and give me honest feedback…

http://vimeo.com/morgentau

further experiments with results of my computer chatting project.
investigating semantic functions of typography and again legibility.

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this is an advancement of tools i created for my “computer chatting” project.
i am currently investigating the alienation in type and the classic wars on legibility.
kinda like the effect create when i overlay the two layers of typographic information (first image)

“People who love ideas must have a love of words, and that means, given a chance, they will take a vivid interest in the clothes which words wear.”
Beatrice Warde

A project by Christian Möller:
On camera, six actresses each try to hold a smile for as long as they could, up to one and half hours. Each ongoing smile is scrutinized by a emotion recognition system and whenever the display of happiness fell below a certain threshold, an alarm alerted them to show more sincerity. Displayed in the gallery on six flat panel monitors, sequenced adjacent to each other along the wall, the piece creates a concert of alert signals within an ambience of forced friendliness and irritating melancholy telling that the performance of sincerity is hard work.

watch the video