skeletons
TRANSCRIPT
Leonardo
SkeletonsAuthor(s): Jim JohnsonSource: Leonardo, Vol. 25, No. 1 (1992), p. 94Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1575631 .
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Fig. 2. Christopher Janney, Sonic Pass/dc, permanent inter- active sound environment, 8 x 56 x 10 ft, 1990. Participants moving through this space, at Techworld Plaza, Washington, D. C., trigger melodic notes as well as natural sounds. (Photo: Lucien Perkins)
Fig. 3. James Johnson, Dead Air, artist's book, 1991. This work uses the artist's keletons type font
with a series of words that com- plete phrases beginning with the word 'Dead'.
Fig. 2. Christopher Janney, Sonic Pass/dc, permanent inter- active sound environment, 8 x 56 x 10 ft, 1990. Participants moving through this space, at Techworld Plaza, Washington, D. C., trigger melodic notes as well as natural sounds. (Photo: Lucien Perkins)
Fig. 3. James Johnson, Dead Air, artist's book, 1991. This work uses the artist's keletons type font
with a series of words that com- plete phrases beginning with the word 'Dead'.
SOUNDSTAIR. Minnesota is one in a series of Soundstar installations (Fig. 2) that I have created in the United States and Europe. Each installation is 'sound-specific', having been com-
posed using, among other elements, the acoustics within the space as well as the indigenous sounds of the geo- graphical region.
Composed of a series of electronic
sensing devices, a computer and a
sampler/synthesizer, the permanent
SOUNDSTAIR. Minnesota is one in a series of Soundstar installations (Fig. 2) that I have created in the United States and Europe. Each installation is 'sound-specific', having been com-
posed using, among other elements, the acoustics within the space as well as the indigenous sounds of the geo- graphical region.
Composed of a series of electronic
sensing devices, a computer and a
sampler/synthesizer, the permanent
installation SOUNDSTAIR. Minnesota resides on the main stairway of Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul. As participants move on the stairs, their movements are translated into sounds and amplified back onto the stairs. Both the musical scales and the timbre change throughout the
day, from a major scale of African flutes, to Chinese pentatonic scale of acoustic guitars and the Minnesota bird, the loon.
installation SOUNDSTAIR. Minnesota resides on the main stairway of Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul. As participants move on the stairs, their movements are translated into sounds and amplified back onto the stairs. Both the musical scales and the timbre change throughout the
day, from a major scale of African flutes, to Chinese pentatonic scale of acoustic guitars and the Minnesota bird, the loon.
SKF..ETONS
JimJohnson, 3350 13th St., Boulder, CO 80304, U.S.A. E-mail:
The Skeletons type font (Fig. 3) was in-
spired by a low-tech form of media- the rubber stamp. It began with the idea of designing a typeface using the
image of a skeleton in the form of each letter of the alphabet. Prints were made with the stamps of the various body parts/bones assuming the position of a letterform. These were digitized and edited (turned into silhouettes) in a paint program. They were copied and pasted into a font program, where they were traced and scaled, spaced and kerned.
The Skeletons font was created with the intention of using pictures (im- ages of a different sort than letters) as letters that could be ordered to make words and pictures, both at the same time. This amounts to typing a pic- ture and literally telling an illustrated
story. The nature of the story was de- termined, in this case, by both the syn- tax of words and of images, the latter
being the more difficult to describe, as it has not, for all intents and pur- poses, been formalized.
Two works that use the Skeletons font are A Thousand Words and Dead Air. A Thousand Words is a work in pro- gress comprised of a book set in the Skeletons font and an installation of the pages of the book in the form of
paper tiles. The latter was installed at the CAGE Gallery in Cincinnati in
April 1991 and covered one-third of a wall 40 ft in length.
Each page/tile of A Thousand Words consists of one word relating to human existence in general and rep- resented more specifically by the skeleton letters. The work suggests several questions. Is a picture worth a thousand words? Are a thousand words worth one picture? Where is the picture? What is the picture?
Dead Air is a book that was published in July 1991 using the same typeface to represent words completing various phrases beginning with the word 'dead', such as Dead Wrong, Dead Issue and Dead Heat. A book of three (or more) texts, it raises similar
questions regarding the natures of both words and images and their pro-
SKF..ETONS
JimJohnson, 3350 13th St., Boulder, CO 80304, U.S.A. E-mail:
The Skeletons type font (Fig. 3) was in-
spired by a low-tech form of media- the rubber stamp. It began with the idea of designing a typeface using the
image of a skeleton in the form of each letter of the alphabet. Prints were made with the stamps of the various body parts/bones assuming the position of a letterform. These were digitized and edited (turned into silhouettes) in a paint program. They were copied and pasted into a font program, where they were traced and scaled, spaced and kerned.
The Skeletons font was created with the intention of using pictures (im- ages of a different sort than letters) as letters that could be ordered to make words and pictures, both at the same time. This amounts to typing a pic- ture and literally telling an illustrated
story. The nature of the story was de- termined, in this case, by both the syn- tax of words and of images, the latter
being the more difficult to describe, as it has not, for all intents and pur- poses, been formalized.
Two works that use the Skeletons font are A Thousand Words and Dead Air. A Thousand Words is a work in pro- gress comprised of a book set in the Skeletons font and an installation of the pages of the book in the form of
paper tiles. The latter was installed at the CAGE Gallery in Cincinnati in
April 1991 and covered one-third of a wall 40 ft in length.
Each page/tile of A Thousand Words consists of one word relating to human existence in general and rep- resented more specifically by the skeleton letters. The work suggests several questions. Is a picture worth a thousand words? Are a thousand words worth one picture? Where is the picture? What is the picture?
Dead Air is a book that was published in July 1991 using the same typeface to represent words completing various phrases beginning with the word 'dead', such as Dead Wrong, Dead Issue and Dead Heat. A book of three (or more) texts, it raises similar
questions regarding the natures of both words and images and their pro- spective interchangeability, as well as those relating to text and information. spective interchangeability, as well as those relating to text and information.
94 Words On Works 94 Words On Works
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This content downloaded from 195.34.79.79 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 22:38:36 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions