Tunnel Vision:
A Cybertextual Interpretation of Mark Strand’s The Tunnel
David Gruber
Assistant Professor of Scientific and Technical Communication
City University of Hong Kong
David M Rieder
Associate Professor of English
North Carolina State University
Artists' Statement
Tunnel Vision is a "cybertextual" interpretation of Mark Strand's poem, "The Tunnel." The project, which uses open-source motion-detection software in conjunction with a standard webcam, uses the position and size/force of a user's movements to effect the way in which the poem is presented. When the user moves, h/er movements make visible sections of the poem, and as s/he moves, different parts of the poem are presented. When s/he stops moving, the poem disappears.
The combination of a motion-tracking system and original programming, which creatively extends the data from the motion-tracker to the presentation of the poem, is the basis for our allegorical reading of Strand's psychological poem, a poem about the "other inside of us." Whereas Strand's poem is about a psychological fight with an other/stranger, ours is about the ambivalent dynamic that many of us feel with technology-as-other. When a user has to move around, bob their head, and/or wave their hand to see/read the poem, our hope is that they will realize they are acting a bit like the protagonist in Strand's poem, who desperately tries to scare the other/stranger away. (You can't scare your technological other away.. it's always already part of you).
View the accompanying essay here: Tunnel Vision: A Cybertextual Interpretation of Mark Strand’s The Tunnel
David Gruber is an Assistant Professor of Scientific and Technical Communication at City University of Hong Kong. His research areas include science writing, rhetoric, and digital media with a special interest in neuroscientific communication and the body-brain-technology relationship. He has published research papers in Media History, Visual Communication Quarterly, Ctheory, and POROI. He has also exhibited new media artwork at the Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh and has been published in the University of Minnesota’s Technological Emergence Collection for his "NeuroTracker" project.
David M Rieder is Associate Professor of English and a faculty member in the Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media PhD program (CRDM) at NC State University. He teaches graduate courses in digital media theory, digital humanities, and humanities physical computing using Arduino/Processing. Recent publications/works include the co-edited collection Small Tech, essays in Kairos and Computers and Composition Online, and digital interactive works for the contemporary art museum in Raleigh (the CAM) and other public venues.
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