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Postcard
From Tunis |
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Postcard from Tunis is not an 'objective' documentary. It's a playful,
artistic exploration of Writing
: It's set in a very personal audiovisual portrait of Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, a city and culture that I love, and the home of my former family-in-law. I programmed the unique interface so that it echoes an actual visit, where you can't help learning a few Tunisian words and with time, starting to read written Arabic. Although it was designed for adults, children have shown a strong affinity with it. The interface is bilingual in English and French MORE A BOUT THE INTERFACE The main theme is Writing, which, as this work demonstrates has no fixed boundaries distinguishing it from pictures. [See my 2003 thesis dissertation for a full discussion of this idea; also its expression as a subsequent artistic work Postcards From Writing 2004]. In designing the interface for this CD-ROM, I stuck to the standard GUI conventions and inputs. However I substantially developed the "rollover" functionality. The user moves the cursor around the screen, triggering an immersive experience of layered and linked sounds, musics, images and texts. The idea was to echo an actual visit. Users who don't speak Tunisian or read Arabic can't help learning a few words and with time, starting to read the Arabic script. As these users interact with Postcard From Tunis they begin to perceive the eight interleaved Tunisian words (eqiuvalent to Tunis, door, fish, writing, coka cola, coffee, camel and boat) as recognisable noises, meaningfully linked to images and also to written Arabic.
These apparent transitions highlight the lack of fixed boundaries between between writing and pictures, speech and noise. The screen becomes a post card that the user reads, writes and plays as an instrument, creating multidimensional signs unique to human-computer interaction. Sound is an integral part of the work. A considerable effort has been made to produce a continuous, high-quality stereo audio experience, using location recordings from Tunis and original music created by Lebanese musicians in Australia. CREDITS
Artist/Programmer/Director: Sally Pryor
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These
written Arabic words, for example equivalent of Tunis on the
left, may also seem to move from being beautiful unknown "squiggles"
to recognisable patterns linked to sounds. Later they may be perceived
as written texts, recognisably made up of letters of the Arabic alphabet.