Net project Script Introduction + Curatorial statement + work list + project info + feed back +
wallicon.gif (263 bytes)
Title - The Great Wall of China
Artist - Simon Biggs
E-mail - simon@babar.demon.co.uk
Status - This is a linked project
Original URL - http://hosted.simonbiggs.easynet.co.uk/wall.htm
Date Created - Date Archived - 3.1.2000
Technology Used - HTML , SHOCKWAVE,
Biography -

Born 1957 Adelaide, Australia.
Working as an artist since 1976.
Started to use computers to make images in 1978. Developed graphics dedicated computer system in 1979.
Started to produce computer animations in 1980.
Since 1983 focus has been on computer based interactive installation, animation, CD-ROM, the Web and related media.
Has lived and worked in London, UK, since 2000.

If you need more detailed information please go to Simon's biography page-
http://hosted.simonbiggs.easynet.co.uk/detail.htm

Homepage - virtualicon.gif (148 bytes)http://hosted.simonbiggs.easynet.co.uk/
About the Wall -

The Great Wall of China is constructed from a grammar engine which can manipulate and generate
texts from individual words. The largest elements in the work are individual words. There are no
pre-existing sentences.

All the words available to the texts are taken from Kafka's original story. The "dictionary" for the work
uses every word that Kafka used.

The grammar engine used has various components for creating sentences of various kinds and
indeterminate length, creating and checking for plurality, conjugation and other basic grammatic
necessities. Some more advanced aspects of the grammar engine include the ability for one sentence
to read another and look for connections between nouns, verbs, etc. This allows sentences to form
themselves in relation to the "meaning" contained in the sentences around it. I call this a
"contextualisation device".

Some components of the Great Wall have a visual element, which is usually interactive as well. It may
respond to the viewer, to a text or control another component of the work. The visual components are
intended not as illustration of the texts but as part of the reading/writing process. In a sense, the text
is mutating into another (visual) code. This visuality is however not about pictures but is itself
another coding system. We witness the transmogrification of the linguistic into the abstract and
obscure.

The Great Wall of China is a mesh of interacting codes.

One objective of this aspect of The Great wall of China (as distinct from its other media forms on
CD-ROM, in book form and as an interactive installation) has been to minimise the bandwidth of the
work. The Net is still very slow, so it seemed desirable to make the work very compact. The various
elements are never more than a few kilobytes in size, allowing downloads in seconds, even though
they are fully realtime interactive.

One way to achieve this degree of compactness was to not use images. Everything you see is created
during runtime using the available drawing and typography tools on your own computer. When you
download a component of the Great Wall of China all you are downloading is a program.