Jeffrey Shaw :: The Distributed Legible City [1998]

In »The Legible City« [1989] the visitor is able to ride a stationary bicycle through a simulated representation of a city that is constituted by computer-generated three-dimensional letters that form words and sentences along the sides of the streets. This new version encompasses all the experiences offered by the original version, but introduces an important new multi-user functionality that to a large extent becomes its predominant feature. In »The Distributed Legible City« there are two or more bicyclists at remote locations who are simultaneously present in the virtual environment. They can meet each other [by accident or intentionally], see abstracted avatar representations of each other, and when they come close to each other they can verbally communicate with each other.
- Jeffrey Shaw -

Type of Work
Interactive networked installation

Credits
· Concept and realization: Jeffrey Shaw
· Application software: Adrian West, Gideon May, Torsten Ziegler, Adolf Mathias
· Realization: Dirk Groneveld [text], John Cook, Timo Fleisch, Adolf Mathias, Steven Petiffer, Andreas Schiffler, Armin Steinke [Hardware]; Ulrich Weltner [assistance exhibition architecture]; Sabine Hirtes [modelling]

· Production: ZKM | Institute for Visual Media in cooperation with the University of Manchester

· Produced in the context of the ESPRIT project eSCAPE

Hardware
per location:
Pentium II PC with Voodoo card
21" monitor
modified home trainer [with generator and potentiometer]
PIC controller
platform for bicycle with fittings for monitor and PC box
set of headphones
microphone

Software
Maverik
custom software applications

ZKM-department
· Institute for Visual Media

Presentations [selected]
»net_condition«, ZKM | Karlsruhe [D], 23.09.1999 - 27.02.2000

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