Margaret Crane
Endless Beginnings: Interactive Narrative in Public Space
Date 4/29/98
Affiliation Xerox Parc, Palo Alto
Abstract
The Twentieth Century
Inside. Outside. From room to room. New cities and foreign airports. We are in one world. But we dream of another. The future flows into the past. Time gives itself away so cheap. Our emotions are epic. Objects are props that tell us who we are. We stride through the obsolete panorama. High modern coffee tables and classic cars whisper of a classy way of life. Against a fading sky, lights flicker in the tall buildings. The dull wooden silence of tactile things is deafening. Relief is the beautiful lie we've constructed. It is elegant as a suspension bridge. One day, a bridge will span the chasm between thought and action. Then we will know what to say to each other. Until then, anguish becomes us. The maelstrom is a funnel spinning in an enormous gulf. Time slows way down in the center of the funnel. And this is where we live. As time becomes solidified, we get restless. We fall in love with losers that remind us of someone else. We obsess. Late at night, the freeway on ramp sweeps empty and magnificent to somewhere far away. We keep hanging around where we aren't wanted.