surround screen
The visual version of surround sound, featured at Monkey Town.
In the back room at Monkey Town there is a theater with four screens, one on each wall. While I was there, researchers from The Institute for the Future of the Book used the screens primarily to show us a presentation about their work. One of their current projects explores the implications of hypertext, which essentially is a network of text connected via links across the internet. During their presentation all of the four screens showed the same image. While listening to their presentation, I though of a way they could put the four screens to better use: the screens themselves could form a hypertext network. One screen would show a random internet page. Then the screen to the left of it would show a page that has a link to that first page. This cycle would continue, filling all four screens, each with a webpage. Every second each screen would load a new page that has a link to the page to its left. Initially the screens would all change in sync, but since webpages take varying amounts of time to load, soon the screens would be loading their pages at different times. Then the room would be flickering with networked hypertext. Now just turn out the lights, turn up some techno music, and dance!