The Hindu Business Line : Wondering

Enjoyed those time-compressed movies where you can see the passing of the seasons on a mountain-top? And on the other extreme, have you been mesmerised by the super-slow-motion replay of the red cricket ball, hitting the pitch and turning, turning, turning and kissing the edge of the bat?

So what is with this fascination in compressing or extending time? Of course, we have to admit that we can't do this with time itself but moments or seasons already captured/recorded and replayed at a different speed.

Perhaps it is to do with learning, understanding, and appreciating the beauty of what we are seeing (but not very clearly, really). And how would you go about appreciating a different kind of beauty - the beauty of writing, and the beauty of technology?

Recall the first time you heard a scary bed-time story, with dramatic narration (including sound effects) and the slow, oh so slow delivery. Or the first time you read one of Chase's best where you couldn't wait to turn over the pages. And how about the weird fantasies of wanting to get into a radio to check if there were some midgets sitting inside and reading the news or singing a song.

So, Karl Heinz Jeron and Valie Djordjevic created a new media exhibit called "In Search of Lost Time", the name of the book by Marcel Proust that is the foundation of the exhibit (http://khjeron.de/index.php?cSID=&cat_id=1826).

First, the text of the book is deconstructed into zeroes and ones. One performer reads out the zeroes, and another the ones; another performer, the CPU, listens to the read-out and translates the code back into text, and cuts out the relevant letter and hands it to yet another performer, the display, who pastes the letter onto a wall panel.

It is slow reading though: An eight-hour performance will get you only 250 characters, just a minute of reading!

If you've had a bad quarter, you can present your report this way to your boss, and hope that your division's turned around!

N. Nagaraj

More Stories on : Internet | Books | Come Again!

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Fighting shy of the call

Office '07 - It's different

Wondering - lost in time

Hunting far and wide

Working of the Internet

`Satyam will play the game differently'

Security, the MS way

Zooming in on the scene

Quiz

Engineers are among the key people in the world

Cartoon