Step into a photo booth for poetry. Adjust the stool, create a typo-poem and wait as it is printed for you.
This is the Typomatic, a literary installation created in collaboration between members of the French performance art group ALIS and the interactive design studio Buzzing Light.
The poetry is based on the Poésie à 2 mi-mots, a technique invented by Pierre Fourny in 2000 that could be translated into English as two half-words poetry or between the lines poetry or cutting edge poetry. This technique plays with the shapes of letters: words are cut in two horizontally and reversed so that a new word emerges from the original word. Fourny developed software for this but most presentations have used paper, objects and videos, allowing readers to forget the digital processing involved.
With the Typomatic, the Poésie à 2 mi-mots combines the digital with the pleasure of a paper printout. The work plays with the relationship between art and machine, reminding us of the playfulness that the original photo booths engendered.
Music: Belaire, Exploding, Impacting
Music: PVT, I Learnt This In Jail
Music: Boots Randolph, Yakety Sax
The Typoticket is the piece of paper — where the two words you choose — are printed. You have to fold it up to appreciate the taste of the word association you imagined. We used to say Typotickets are the tiniest spectacles of the world. You can take them away in your pocket. Feel free, make the Typotickets circulate all around!
The very first replica of the original one.
The challenge was to re-build a new Typomatic with the human and material resources of the Rutgers University-Camden and with the software developed by Buzzing Light for ALIS, in two days! And we did it. New cabin (stronger and fixed onto rollers), new design (colorfull and reminding the play on words), and a very new indecision button (in case of creative block) — try the big red button now!. We also recustomized this new web site with new videos. Challenge faced.