Motion Phone


'Scott Sona Snibbe Scott Sona Snibbe

The Motion Phone is an experiment in pure visual communication. It is an attempt to open up the language of abstract animation to a general audience by allowing spontaneous human gestures to be captured in all their subtlety.

As an individually explored piece of art, the Motion Phone is a single workstation which displays a digital animation loop. Using a graphics tablet, the user can choose colors and drawing tools from palettes on the screen. When the user draws, the speed and location of his marks are entered into the animation loop. As he continues to draw, his marks are added into the same animation loop. The non-modal interface allows one to simultaneously modify shape, size and color by the pressure on the tablet, key presses, and by using the surrounding interface.

When the animator decides that he would like to interact with other users, he can "connect" to them. His space then includes the motions of a second user, transmitted over the Internet.

The tools are primarily two-dimensional. Since the animation is stored in a display list, each viewer can translate over the infinite plane of interaction, or zoom into or out of parts. With more than two users, this space becomes an immense landscape upon which many dialogues are taking place, and records of prior conversations or performances remain.

2 SGI Indy R4600 Workstations, 64M RAM. Large Screen Television or Computer Monitor. 2 Graphic Tablets. Custom Motion Phone Software. Internet connection or 8mm tape drive for installing software. Ethernet connection between machines nd Ethernet HUB.