Helen J. Burgess burgess@umbc.edu

(Edgar Barrier of
Mercury Theater, the
voice of the Polyrhetor.
Who wouldn’t trust a
voice that looked like
that?)

Artist’s model of a “Turing machine,” Mike Davey

 Enhanced iBook
 Each chapter contains
four threads:
 Context
 Chronotope
 Specters
 Machines
 Read by chapter or
by individual thread

Context Specters
-- documents and film showing the -- model of the Polyrhetor, sound
world’s fair and futurama exhibits recordings
-- 3D printable model cars from the -- chair and speaker to simulate the oral
exhibit experience
Chronotope Machine
-- maps and diorama models of the -- electronic workbench for assembling
spaces of the fair different interactive devices (eg makey
-- Google API maps of the interstate makey)
system over time

 Wulf comes from an novel called “Wulfsyarn”
by Phillip Mann featuring a machinic
character called “Wulf the Autoscribe”.
 Wulf says, about being the narrator of the
story:
“I too am here, a stranger at the crossroads,
waiting in the moonlight, ready to give
directions and guide you.” (loc 59)

 “Presumably the child brain is something like
a notebook as one buys it from the
stationer's. Rather little mechanism, and lots
of blank sheets. (Mechanism and writing are
from our point of view almost synonymous.)”
[Turing, A.M. (1950). Computing
machinery and intelligence. Mind, 59, 433-
460.]

 “Whereas designers typically use form, color and
materials to make an object express some human
element (a drill handle may have a pattern that looks
aggressive, a toaster might have knobs and dials that
seem friendly), we’re entering a time when sound,
light and movement are equally important parts of
the creative palette. Everyday objects whose
expressive elements have long been static will now
glow, sing, vibrate and change position at the drop of
a hat.”
(NYT, Carla Diana, “Talking, Walking Objects,” Jan. 26 2013.)