Typography and the face of a city
The visual impression one gains from a city depends for a substantial part on its typography. Our perception usually ignores most of the signs or other letters helping us to concentrate on what is important for us in the current situation. To focus our attention on the typography I took pictures of the city of Berlin and reduced them to the typography they contain. These experiments showed that the remaining complex structures reflect the character and architecture of the city. We can recognize places simply by their typography and where the letters are located.
Virtual information architecture
In a next step I constructed a virtual model of Berlin's Alexanderplatz but reduced it to its type in a 3D realtime environment. It also contains moving typography like the license plates of cars or the writing on a shopping bag making its way across the square carried by its owner. I projected this virtual model of the city on the four walls of a room. In the center of this CAVE-situation a table covered with a ground plan of the Alexanderplatz served as the physical interface. A moveable glass cube on that map represented this room in which the observer was located. By moving the cube one moved the room in which she was standing through a virtual typographical scenery of the center of Berlin. This way one can experience the typographical culture of an urban space.
Images
Flash
