Word: exhibition
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...best uses of interactive technology is in the exhibit dealing with last year's riots in Los Angeles. Viewers can move through a time line detailing events before and during the disturbance as well as the media's role, heroic acts and the conflagration's aftermath. By hitting a few buttons, people can call up interviews with community residents, police, fire fighters and gang members. The computer asks visitors questions about their views of the episode, and those who answer can find out how other people responded...
Typography began as an art understood and practiced by only a few people, but the first type designers worked under standards less conservative than their 18th- and 19th century successors, Gutenberg based his early type (not included in this exhibit) on the black-letter style used by German scribes (see the banner of The Boston Globe and The New York Times). Others experimented with types that looked like the monk with quill calligraphy to which literate people were accustomed. Such types become known as italics. Still others imitated everyday handwriting, and a fourth group copied the sturdy, draftsmanlike formality...
...exhibit gives evidence of the gradual idealization of the printed, rather than the handwriting, letterform. One 1570 piece exemplifies the increasing dominance of the roman types, Giovan france Cresci, a calligrapher, tried to invigorate his own fading business by putting together a book whose lettering suggested that hand should imitate machine...
This appears contradictions suggests that a wide variety of typefaces may be commercially viable. And the contradiction, when combined with technology, gives type designers room to maneuver. According to the exhibit notes, producing a new typeface once took years or decades. But the advent of digital type--often conceived, drawn, and edited entirely on screen--shortens the production time to hours, days, or weeks. Former Adams House resident Matthew Butterick '92 even created commercial types while still a full-time student. The demand for a diversity of typefaces pushes typography toward eclecticism...
...never know how perot's "electronic town halls" would have changed politics, but the Houghton exhibit indicates that digital democracy has served typography well. Such exhibits as "About face" can ensure that consumers and designers use democracy's energies properly, constumers will learn that the history of type began long before Apple began bundling bitmaps of "Times," "Helvetica" and "Palatine" with Macintosh will be able contract the wild modern early periods with the stodgy lay in between...