Stéfan Sinclair

Ubiquitous text analysis

How can digital content be connected to text analysis tools? The TAPoR (Text Analysis Portal for Research) provided a workbench model, but usability studies suggest that a workbench was not how humanists thought of doing their research - humanists start with the text and apply tools as lenses for analyzing the text. This led us to experiment with ubiquitous tools that can be embedded in the user’s environment or in the text, be it an online journal or blog. In this paper, we survey a number of experiments leading up toxa0 TATooxa0 (Text Analysis for you Too) andxa0 Voyeur Toolsxa0 xa0both of which allow humanists to bring computational linguistic analysis and visualization, among other things, into their habitual research environments, and to thereby render those environments dynamic, with living, breathing data. Full Text:xa0 HTML ( pdf for download -- right click or control click to save)

L'inscription de la nature et de la technologie dans La possibilité d’une île de Michel Houellebecq

La création d’une nouvelle source d’énergie nucléaire sans déchets radioactifs aidera-t-elle à sauver l’humanité lors de l’épuisement des ressources fossiles ? Le clonage d’espèces en voie d’extinction permettra-t-il de renverser l’appauvrissement de la biodiversité à cause de l’influence humaine ? Imaginer l’avenir de la planète et de l’humanité oblige le rapprochement de deux forces qui ont été longtemps articulées en opposition, à savoir la technologie et la nature. Cependant, nous vivons dans un monde si complexe qu’il n’est pas toujours évident de distinguer le naturel de l’artificiel, le biologique du technologique. La littérature contemporaine tente à sa façon de commenter et de représenter une telle complexité en envisageant des mondes à venir. Michel Houbellebecq, bien connu pour ses mises en scène de sexe, ses remarques controversées sur l’Islam, et sa vision pessimiste de la société occidentale, ne se présente pas comme candidat évident pour explorer le rapport entre la nature et la technologie. Se situant plutôt dans le camp des antiécologistes, il n’embrasse pas pour autant la technologie comme unique voie du progrès vers un monde meilleur. En effet, il prétend que la technologie, « ce sont des faits historiques, avec du pour et du contre » dont l’intérêt romanesque est « relativement faible » (interview paru en 2009 dans le Magazine des livres). Or, les actes ne correspondent pas toujours aux paroles, et il se trouve que la technologie joue un rôle fascinant dans le monde romanesque de Houellebecq. Dans La Possibilité d’une ı̂le, l’auteur se met à imaginer le monde dans trois cent ans lorsque l’être humain est remplacé par une nouvelle espèce modifiée génétiquement et physiologiquement, à savoir des clones, ou néo-humains, dont

The Big See: Large Scale Visualization

Display size and resolution has been increasing at a steady pace with the economies of scale of computing. Wall-sized displays, previously only seen in specialized centres are now affordable and being used for information visualization. But what do we know about the constraints and opportunities in designing for such Large Scale Information Displays (LSiDs)? How can one design text visualizations to take advantage of the large scale and public space of a LSiD? In this paper we describe the variety of technologies being used to create LSIDs and some example installations. We then discuss the literature about LSID information design and present two visualization ideas we have developed for LSiDs called the Big See and LAVA. We conclude with design principles that we have drawn up to guide our work.

Abstraction and realism in the design of avatars for the simulated environment for theatre

The Simulated Environment for Theatre (SET) is an experimental three-dimensional interface for use in blocking plays. Created using the Unity3D game engine, SET allows directors or student directors to associate character movement and speech with a timeline that represents the line of action, as well as to annotate choices, change the script, place viewpoints in the audience, and specify the scale-model stage and set. In this article, the authors discuss the iterative design choices involved in creating an appropriate range of characters and character attributes, where they were conscious of the need to keep complexity to a minimum while simultaneously providing as wide a range as possible of the features necessary for a director planning blocking. These include considerations of character attributes such as direction of movement, posture, age, and species, while at the same time the authors decided to de-emphasize control of features such as height, weight, gender, costume, and limbs. The purpose of this discussion is twofold: to cast light on the intricacies of the design decisions around what appear to be relatively simple objects; and to help inform related discussions for other researchers making decisions about avatar design, whether in virtual theatre projects or other broader contexts.

The Humanities Matter! Infographic

The Humanities are academic disciplines that seek to understand and interpret the human experience, from individuals to entire cultures, engaging in the discovery, preservation, and communication of the past and present record to enable a deeper understanding of contemporary society. The Humanities encompass literature, classics, ancient and modern languages, history, philoso - phy, media studies, the fine and performing arts, and other related subjects. It can be a challenge to show the benefits the Humanities bring: in this infographic we gather available evidence to show the Humanities matter!