Leonardo

The Prompt and Virtual RealityAuthor(s): Fred TruckSource: Leonardo, Vol. 24, No. 2, Connectivity: Art and Interactive Telecommunications (1991),pp. 171-173Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1575290 .

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The Prompt and Virtual Reality

Fred Truck

TI elecommunications can be practiced on an elemental level by any two individuals, groups, businesses or institutions equipped with computers, modems, telecom- munications software and telephone service. After basic technical matters such as baud rate and communications protocol have been determined, a transmitter can be desig- nated, the receiver can open a file and information can be exchanged.

Artists have been involved with telecommunications since the mid-1970s. While many one-time events have been staged by a number of artists, the long-term networks have been more significant. In 1980 Robert Adrian began the Artbox service on the I. P. Sharp corporate network. Artbox eventually became Artext, a network still being used [ 1 ]. In 1984, Art Com director Carl Loeffler initiated the Art Com Electronic Network (ACEN). ACEN took to the wires in April 1986 on the WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link), and has been active on-line every day since then, carrying information and on-line artworks by artists. As well as being a service, ACEN is also an interactive artwork in that most of the information is generated and shaped by users within the artist-designed framework of the telecommunications environment, which encourages such participation. In this sense, ACEN is a conceptual, public sculpture shaped by many hands.

Electric Bank is a project that collects information about performance art and artists, periodically distributing it in the form of computer hardcopy. The Bank has also been active in database design and dissemination of database in- formation through telecommunications since 1984. Small, privately operated information services such as Electric Bank telecommunicate by appointment only, without the benefit of bulletin board service software. At an agreed- upon time, connection is established between the Bank and its client, and the file is transmitted. In this light, the act of telecommunications appears stark and simple-perhaps like two people meeting only in the pitch black of night, knowing each other only by the sounds of their voices.

Most information services or electronic bulletin boards now use telecommunications server software, some of

Fig. 1. A menu from Art Com Electronic Network's Electronic Mall, showing an expanded prompt with six different possible actions.

./-\ -/ / / / / / / /' \/ \ / /- /-/ / / / ELECTRONIC MRALL

RRT BOOK STORE, Tel ecommun i cat i ons and Computers, AISLE 1

good s:

1. Art + Telecommunication, ed. Heidi Grundmann

2. The Computer Revolution and the Arts, ed. Richard L. Loveless

3. Postmodern Currents: Rrt and Rrtists in the Age of Electronic Media, Margot Lovejog

4. Return to the ARrt Book Store 5. Checkout cashier 6. Yer outta here!

hot number do you woant to see? '

? 1991 ISAST Pergamon Press plc. Printed in Great Britain. 0024-094X/91 $3.00+0.00

it available commercially and some of it custom written. All of this software is aimed at fostering telecommunications and the exchange of data and information.

Most telecommunicating is currently done in text form, with images and applications transmitted as binary files. The future promises true multi- media information exchanges with real-time images and sound through ISDN and even more spectacular formats. There are also telecommunications ser- vices, such as CONNECT, whose only users are owners or users of specific types of personal computers. These specialized services have special software that provides a graphic user- interface for their subscribers, complete with icons and menus.

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the role of the prompt in telecommuni- cations in terms of its antiphonal, sculptural and theatrical charac- teristics. It shows how artists have used the prompt, understood in this manner, to posit the existence of a virtual world that can be ex- perienced and manipulated by users who are encouraged to create virtual identities. The paper concludes with a vision of the poten- tial for art in telecommunications.

This feature cannot be duplicated by other large carriers whose clientele own and use all kinds of computers, al- though Compuserve has the Navigator software that imple- ments a graphic interface available for its Macintosh owners.

The framework of reality that telecommunications soft- ware establishes is usually communicated to users through prompts that ask for or expect one of a range of appropriate responses. The prompt-and-response device is musical, an- tiphonal in nature. Behind the prompt are large program- ming structures, unseen by the user, which set up the range of choices, carry out the action requested, and then repeat the refrain by offering another prompt.

The prompt is also sculptural in behavior. It acts as a herm, as the marker at the crossroads, clarifying where the user is at any given time. The prompt is particularly sculp- tural when it occurs after a menu, which outlines a number of possible choices. It serves to divide conceptual space into clearly demarcated directions. Because it is sculptural, the prompt is also theatrical, presenting the telecommunicator with the chance to act.

Rather than emphasize the cause-and-effect choice struc- ture, or the interactivity and participation offered, let us emphasize the musical, sculptural and theatrical as the basis of telecommunications reality. The prompt is musical and sculptural in structure, in that it meaningfully punctuates

Fred Truck (artist), 4225 University, Des Moines, Iowa 50311, U.S.A. E-mail: fjt@well.sf.ca.us

Received 11 May 1990.

LEONARDO, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 17171-173, 1991

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time and space, and theatrical in be- havior, in that it causes choices to be acted on.

What sense of time does telecom- munications software present with the prompt?

There are three major formats for telecommunications: conferencing sys- tems, electronic mail (e-mail) systems and file downloading systems. Most large national systems, such as Compu- serve or Genie, use all three formats. Large regional systems such as the WELL have all three, but they downplay one or more formats to emphasize others. Smaller systems may have only one or two formats available.

All of these formats are time based. The kinds of divisions of time each for- mat makes can be conceptualized as the basic rhythm of the prompt's antiphony.

Conferencing systems evidence the most flexible sense of time. The utilities of chat and send on the WELL and other UNIX systems, or Compuserve's conferencing mode, allow real-time on-line conversations with other users. These temporal and impermanent ex- changes are complemented by bulletin board systems, which collect responses to a particular topic and may be read and contributed to by users for extended periods of time. Bulletin board systems function asynchronously.

Electronic mail systems also work asynchronously, but are space deter- mined. For example, if a user mails an electronic letter to a user located on the same system, transmission and re- ception can be almost instantaneous. However, if a telecommunicator in the United States sends e-mail to someone in France, it will not be received for several days.

File downloading systems are the most static of formats. When a file is uploaded to a system, its reception is marked with a date and time. The file is not altered or added to until it is eliminated from the system.

To the user, no matter what the tele- communications server format, all times occur in real time-that is, the present. Though the texts may have been typed weeks previously, when they scroll by, it is always now. The prompt, even when the user has seen it on thousands of oc- casions, is a visual marker of time call- ing for the next antiphonal response. In the locus of the prompt, at the junc- ture of space and time, a virtual world is created for the telecommunicator.

The virtual world is theater em- bodied both inside and outside the computer. The frame of the computer

monitor is the frame of a small pro- scenium stage. The user's attention is riveted by the light emitted by the moni- tor. Decisions made by the user are acted out on the stage inside the moni- tor. The presence of the virtual world is announced by the prompt. Other tele- communicators often witness an action on monitors in other locations and re- spond with actions of their own. Some- times the user indulges in monologue, using the practice areas available in most large systems, or editing files or testing programs.

Users can agree on what the virtual world is like because its nature is char- acterized by the duality of the graphic forms the prompt can take.

The direct statement of the prompt, such as the 'Ok:' prompt from the WELL [2]

Ok (? for help):

conceals a set of commands for action. In this virtual world, it is assumed that the user knows certain things, such as how to move around the system, how to get help by typing a question mark, and what to do next. The purpose of con- cealing the commands is not to sepa- rate those who know the commands from those who do not, as is often as- sumed; it is to call for standard knowl- edge. Although the user saves time and expense by not having to scroll through 100 or so standard commands, when- ever the standard prompt is seen, stand- ard knowledge is called for. Only the standard set of commands can be put into action. The direct statement of the prompt reveals the foundation, the musical, antiphonal basis of the ordi- nary, everyday reality of the virtual world.

When extraordinary actions are called for, or when the virtual world is to be re- vealed in a structure that departs from the standard set of commands, a menu followed by a prompt is used. A menu is an expanded prompt that reveals ex- plicit directions to be taken. The menu shown in Fig. 1 is from Art Com Elec- tronic Network's Electronic Mail.

The prompt not only marks out the different directions possible, but it characterizes the spatial nature of the virtual world as a shopping mall where art can be purchased. This sculptural form masks a series of UNIX com- mands, making it possible for the tele- communicator to initiate action by typing a single number. Following the sculptural text of choices is a new anti- phonal prompt represented by:

What number do you want to see?:

This prompt recurs every time a new aisle in the store is entered. It echoes the basic 'Ok:' prompt of the WELL, which reappears when the user leaves the mall for the normal reality of the virtual world. The interdependence of the direct statement prompt, which conceals a body of standard commands governing ordinary virtual reality, and the menu prompt, which sculpts the form of extraordinary virtual reality, establishes a deep and resonant anti- phonal structure with clear and imagi- native visual detail.

Also restated in this antiphony is the

prompt's theatrical potential. The call to action is overwhelming. Hundreds of years ago Shakespeare said "All the world's a stage" [3]. In this electronic reality, one can write one's own mighty lines. Anyone can be an actor. But what is the right response?

Context is the key, of course. The user illusion is theater, the ultimate mirror. It is the audience (the user) that is intelligent and can be directed into a particular context. Giving the audi- ence the appropriate cues is the essence of user-interface design [4].

In the context of the virtual world, artful use of the prompt prompts the user to create a virtual identity. In this way, the user is freed from normal social inhibitions and can more freely create interactive contexts for himself or herself and for others. Users are known to each other by their userids, often virtual masks in themselves. (Bulbhead, fluster and fjt are typical examples.) On the WELL, users can adopt any number of pseudonyms or 'handles' as userid replacements while responding to bulletin board sys- tem topics, to make the illusion even more complete. (For example, I often transform myself from fjt to Col Fjt.) When extraordinary virtual realities are created by sculpting the prompt, the user is stimulated to experience new dimensions of the virtual mask, which can then be folded back into conversa- tion and correspondence with others interacting in a like manner. This is the realm of the secret identity made into a platform for public action.

Artists can build a virtual world using the sculptural and theatrical attributes of the prompt. Once built, this virtual world encourages users to create virtual identities for interaction. Whatever the future may hold, most telecommuni- cations software devices are currently based in the medium of text.

172 Truck, The Prompt and Virtual Reality

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Artists have frequently been critical of telecommunications, primarily be- cause it is limited to text. They wish that images could be transmitted as quickly as words. It is no accident that many visual artists drawn to telecommunica- tions now have roots in conceptual art, which draws heavily on language and mathematics as material. For these art- ists, the virtual world is their stage, and they wield the prompt and the mask.

Only rarely is the opportunity to chart an unknown world given to art- ists, yet the wonder of the virtual tele- communications world is such that no sooner is the prompt given and the map

made, than it is unmade again. Like a dream, it presents the opportunity for artists to speak and act with others through their virtual masks, dreaming the same dream in new ways. The vir- tual world of telecommunications re- freshes itself continually.

References and Notes

1. Founded by Bob Adrian and Roy Ascott, Artext is the first example of the use of a telecommunica- tions system by artists. Artext resides on the I. P. Sharp network. I. P. Sharp, an international cor- poration based in Canada, agreed to allow artists to use its telecom system for their work. The I. P. Sharp system is essentially a messaging or elec- tronic mail network that can be accessed by differ- ent data carriers depending on the user's location.

Artext itself has been used by artists primarily as a vehicle for their projects.

2. The 'Ok:' prompt from the WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link) is a feature of Picospan telecom- munications software and one of the WELL's most recognizable features.

3. William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7.

4. Alan Kay, "Computer Software", Computer Soft- ware (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1984) p. 8.

Glossary

antiphonal-in music, a choir is divided into two parts. One part of the choir sings a verse, and the other part responds.

herm-a statue of an early form of the Greek god Hermes, often with two heads, one facing each way, and often placed where two roads met.

Truck, The Prompt and Virtual Reality 1 173

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