September 7, 2004
Turbulence Commission: "Two Textual Instruments, Part 1: Regime Change"
by Noah Wardrip-Fruin, with Brion Moss, David Durand, and Elaine Froehlich
http://turbulence.org/works/twotxt

Textual instruments make text "playable" in a new way. At first, as one
encounters their workings, they are toys for exploring language–more
flexible than link-node hypertext, more responsive than batch-mode
natural language generators. With growing experience, these instruments
can also become tools for textual performance.

"Regime Change," the first of two textual instruments to be released by
Turbulence this month, begins with a news article from April 2003,
following the bombardment that began the U.S. invasion of Iraq. George
W. Bush cites "eyewitness" intelligence that Saddam Hussein was
assassinated by targeted U.S. bombing, and clings to the contention that
the Iraqi president was hiding "weapons of mass destruction. "Playing
"Regime Change" brings forth texts generated from a document that
records a different U.S. attitude toward presidential assassination and
eyewitness intelligence–the report of the Warren Commission.

"Two Textual Instruments: Regime Change and News Reader" is a 2003
commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, (aka Ether-Ore) for its
Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from the LEF
Foundation.

BIOGRAPHIES

NOAH WARDRIP-FRUIN has recently co-edited two books: The New Media
Reader (2003) and First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and
Game (2004). His artwork has been presented by the Whitney and
Guggenheim museums.

BRION MOSS, an engineer by training and vocation, first entered the art
world through his participation in the conceptualization and creation of
The Impermanence Agent. He is currently employed as a computer geek by
IGN/Gamespy.

DAVID DURAND is Director of Electronic Publishing Services at Ingenta
plc and Adjunct Associate Professor at Brown's Department of Computer
Science. He is co-author of Making Hypermedia Work. He participated in
the XML, TEI, HyTime, XLink and WebDAV standards efforts.

ELAINE FROEHLICH is principle of Active Surface Design and Director of
the Computer Based Design Program for Continuing Education at the Rhode
Island School of Design. Past projects include interaction design for
Mesa Vista and book design for the Encyclopedia Africana.

For more information about Turbulence, please visit http://turbulence.org
–
Jo-Anne Green, Associate Director
New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc.: http://new-radio.org
New York: 917.548.7780 . Boston: 617.522.3856
Turbulence: http://turbulence.org
New American Radio: http://somewhere.org
Networked_Performance Blog and Conference: http://turbulence.org/blog