This week I experimented with projecting animated handwritten text onto a number of surfaces. I started with glass — a clear glass tumbler, a green glass lamp, a bottle of perfume — to see how the glass caught the image and diffused the light. I … Read More →
Category Archives: Found Letters
Found Letters meets Video Sculpture ~ Antique Hack, phase one
In Video Sculpture we were asked to use video projection to bring an antique to life. I choose to experiment with this letter box in order to test a variety of ways these materials might be animated by media. What follows is my one-page write-up … Read More →
Writing the Novel ~ Found Letters’ Kansas Research Trip
Some students spend spring break in exotic climes. I booked a flight to Kansas and spent four days driving through the state, researching Found Letters. My mom joined me as driver, research assistant, and plot consultant. Together, we perused historic documents, discovered narrative possibilities, and … Read More →
The Fountain of Memory ~ Re-Visioning the Fontaine Saint-Michel
Built between 1858 and 1860, the Fontaine Saint-Michel presides over the entrance to Paris’s Latin Quarter. Known both as meeting place and wishing well, crowds gather at the fountain in all weather. One might see someone turn their back and toss a coin over their … Read More →
A Study in Influence ~ Days of Heaven and Terrence Malick’s Magic Hour
As part of my thesis, I’d like to create a system of expressive techniques that bring poems off the page in a way that is not quite theater, not quite art installation, and not quite public reading, but which incorporates elements of all of these. … Read More →
Found Letters ~ “Poster Show” ~ Alumni Feedback
Feedback ~ Kathy Wilson ~ Thesis Advisor With regard to writers innovating around the reading experience, there is the idea that without pain, there is no change. Writing is not feeling the pain caused by technology as much as publishing is, that’s why writing innovation … Read More →
Found Letters ~ Thesis Proposal
The Idea Found Letters : Jack & Matilda Elevator Statement Found Letters: Jack & Matilda is a work of historical literary fiction and an environmental reading experience that follows a World War II-era couple, Jack and Matilda, from occupied Paris to post-war rural Kansas, engaging … Read More →
Found Letters ~ Research Plan ~ Project Development
Research The reading experience What does the scholarly literature say? #research #questions Have people studied what it’s physically like to read? #research #questions Documentation Design Direction Installation Research : Technology Video sculpture Dynamically-compiled imagery, JPEGs become movies #research Rear projection, six surfaces, simultaneous control … Read More →
Found Letters ~ Thesis Development ~ Reflections on a Conceptual Sketch
After developing a quick sketch to visualize the concept for Found Letters’ immersive installation, I did a thirty minute freewrite to unlock new questions and explore various avenues of approach. My notes follow. Is the experience of immersion self-contained? Is it a single-user or multi-user … Read More →
Found Letters Atmosphere and Narrative Progression ~ Moodboard
This moodboard seeks to capture and articulate Found Letter’s narrative progression and immersive atmosphere. After creating and receiving feedback, I see that the use of archival imagery and black-and-white photographs might make a reader feel she is experiencing the story from a distance. Because my … Read More →
Dream Review ~ Dual Listings ~ The New Yorker, Briefly Noted & Goings on About Town: Art
Found Letters: Jack & Matilda by Carlin Mulbrandon Wragg (Chronicle Books; $22.95 print / $5.99 digital) On view at The Morgan Library & Museum through December 19. Digital technology makes storytelling magic in this impressive, interactive debut narrative. A fresh look at World War II … Read More →
Found Letters ~ Video Sculpture Final
Found Letters is a transmedia verse novel that translates history into fiction, immersing readers in the objects, documents, and letters a genealogist uses to reconstruct her family story. This proof-of-concept prototype reveals one of the seven media channels through which this story is told: a … Read More →