Thursday, April 13, 2006

Ronaldinho, a Sign from Above?

Or does he sign to a Vanessa, a deaf child in the crowd? Sources: FC Barcelona - doof.nl - Ronaldinho

New Zealand Rules

NZSL has been made official on april 6. It is now the 'third official language', after English and Māori. Sofar I've seen only movies with interpreters of web-info, and no signing avatars. Feel free to compare a human to a machine. Sources: scoop - vertaald voor doven - w3.org on signing avatar - eSIGN - govs elsewhere Update: Connell’s comments on NZ Sign Language concerning

Umanify

A company in Spain called Umanify contacted me about their work on embedded conversational agents. Specifically: . Not unlike work by Justine Cassell. Watch me speak like an alien trying to blend in Next Step: Head Gestures? Some Literature - Max from Bielefeld

Unitech

Unitech is selling a for ASL. They sell it by stating: 'This course acts like a teacher that never gets tired of repeating the same movements over and over again'.

A Creative way with Familiar Gestures

It's an old newsflash. Basketballer Matthew Richardson 'kissed his middle finger and blew the kiss to the crowd with his finger raised'. Matthew Richardson saluting the crowd (source) Isn't that a nice add-on? Or is it a combination of 'fuck you' and 'blowing a kiss'? I could even argue that here we see a combination of two gesture morphemes, one meaning contempt+dismissal the other 'to you over there'. But that would dull the brilliance of the invention, wouldn't it? He takes two familiar things and blends them into an ironic one-acts-says-it-all gesture.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Futurism III - Intuitive Gestures

This is a complex bit of Futurism that reminds me of C. Hummels' work on gestures (and Diderot). It builds on Bergson's concept of intuition as an essential part of creativity. Boccioni transformed the 'Simple Act' into 'Intuitive Gesture'. I think CH was taken by the expressive power of gestures, almost trying to side-step semiotic function, instead going directly to perceived expression (by what means, I am left to wander). Boccioni, Dynamism of a Cyclist 1913 o/c I guess that this sort of thing led to 'action painting' aka 'gesture painting', see the example below by Willem de Kooning. Attention is drawn to the act of painting itself. The action, or gesture, carries the expressive potential of the artist? It seems a bit arrogant. Here I am, admire my every act... Silly thing: if you google for 'intuitive gesture' you get only technical stuff about how some geek built a new breakthrough interface that works with 'Intuitive Gestures' (I'll take Quek's word for it: it is a myth). But this just means that people who know a lot about computers think that dumb users would be better off trying to 'gesture intuitively' at their computers, rather than using them like they do themselves. ref: Tisdall, Futurism, p70

Futurism II - Capturing Universal Dynamism

"For us the gesture will no longer be an arrested moment of universal dynamism: it will clearly be the dynamic sensation itself made eternal." (from the 'Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting' in Poesia, 11 apr 1910). Carlo Carra, The Red Horseman, 1913, o/c Umberto Boccioni. Unique Forms of Continuity in Space. 1913. Bronze, 43 7/8 x 34 7/8 x 15 3/4 inches Tisdall (Futurism) describes the Futurist Painters' ambition: Not the analysis of movement, nor the capture in visual form of a single movement. But the visual expression of the essence.

Monday, April 10, 2006

French 'Sign Language' Crash Course

French gestures in 3 easy lessons. Some comments from Gael, a French colleague of mine: About counting in- or excluding the thumb: "I think you can count on your fingers in another way if you want. I am not so sure that french people are unable to notice it." More remarks * I am not so sure about this "comme ci, comme ca" gesture * I have never seen the "Je le jure !" gesture and would not understand it. I know several other way to express the same idea. * This "Rien !" gesture is a bit ambiguous. I am not convinced everybody would understand it that way. * There is several ways to express "Ça pue !"

Demo ELo at Conference

With Jeroen Lichtenauer and Elmar Wennes we gave a nice demo of our Sign Language Tutor and the Recognition Technology at the ICT-Kenniscongres. More pictures It wasn't very crowded, but Minister Van der Hoeven (education) was there. And some interesting people came to watch or even participate in the demo, most notably Lucas Noldus. He keeps an eye on TUD developments. Perhaps keen to enter the fray when commercial application becomes viable? He talked about automatic analysis of human behaviour.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Futurism I - Destructive Gestures

"What do the victims matter, if the gesture be beautiful?" Laurent Tailhade 1893, or in French: "Qu'importe la victime si le geste est beau." And repeatedly occurring in descriptions of the early days of Futurism: "The Destructive Gesture of the Libertarians" It is also the title of a science fiction story online, by Frank Wu. Who can tell the future victims from the future perpetrators?