james@itp

Home ť Portfolio		James G. Robinson \| Text and Technology

	SELECTED ACADEMIC WORK
	Text Liberation ť ITP/NYU, 2005 My graduate work at ITP (Tisch School of the Arts, NYU) explored how the new technologies of the digital age can be used to publish text archives in public spaces. My thesis provided a conceptual framework for many of the projects found below. ť Both the thesis paper and presentation can be found at textliberation.org.

	The Verse-O-Matic ť ITP/NYU, 2002 An actual poetry calculator, built around words, rather than numbers. It can easily retrieve meaningful and relevant poems by combining themes much as a traditional calculator solves mathematical equations. ť Presented at the 2003 Ubiquitous Computing Conference, Seattle

	The Quote-O-Matic ť ITP/NYU, 2005 Supermarkets are libraries. We do not enter them to read, but once inside we are constantly reading. The Quote-O-Matic is an otherwise ordinary barcode scanner designed to elevate the discourse of the market by printing quotes rather than quoting prices. ť Presented at the 2005 ITP Spring Show, New York

	Digital Word Modules ť ITP/NYU, 2003-05 A series of modules, each containing hundreds of words drawn from a text associated with a public space, can be arranged to form ephemeral graffiti that reflects the literal subtext of a given space while alleviating boredom and fostering a sense of play. ť Presented at the 2003 Ubiquitous Computing Conference, Seattle.

	Truly Interactive TV ť ITP/NYU, 2003 A simple interface to repurpose thousands of lines of TV dialogue captured from closed captioning data into new narratives. Users can browse and select any line they wish -- aided by the server, which suggests certain sentences or themes to continue previous threads in the discussion. The output is displayed on a screen, or printed for future live performance. ť Presented at the 2004 ITP Winter Show, New York

	Percussion Chess ť ITP/NYU, 2003 A chessboard that also serves as a controller for a computer-based percussion orchestra, changing the goal of the players from winning to creating music together. Complementary rhythms are developed by positioning the pieces in patterns around the board. ť World premiere in May 2003 at Tonic, New York City

	Semantic Tracing ť ITP/NYU, 2004 A design exercise that "traces" a telephone number based on the possible word combinations formed by its digits' associated letters. To think of ordinary numbers in terms of their semantic equivalents is to take a mode of representation we all now take for granted and cast it in a different light. The overarching theme of this project has been to see familiar representations of data in new ways, beyond numbers and letters to maps and graphical representations as well.

	SELECTED PROFESSIONAL WORK
	BaseballLibrary.com ť Editor-in-Chief, 1997-present I am still the lead developer and editor of this full-text archive of baseball history, originally built around the framework of two seminal baseball reference books in 1997. When it was relaunched in 1999 and again in 2001, I designed new graphics and page layouts and programmed the conversion scripts. Along the way, I developed and coded a proprietary content management system in Perl to manage content, easily integrate contributions, and publish material in various formats.

	Precipice (aka TiVo Match) ť TiVo.com, 1999 I was commissioned by TiVo in 1999 to create an interactive feature for their website. The game is based on the old favorite "concentration", with a few twists. I designed the interface, animation and graphics within TiVo design guidelines and color schemes, and coded the entire feature in Flash 4 with ActionScript elements.

	Believe It Or Else ť CBS Sportsline, 2000-01 An interactive sports trivia feature I built for Sportsline, a major sports website. I designed the interface, content layout, animation and graphics within corporate parameters, and coded the entire feature in Flash 4 with ActionScript elements. As the feature matured, I taught high school interns how to build new editions within Flash.

	idealog.com ť The Idea Logical Company, Inc., 2002 A redesigned website built for the New York publishing consultancy at which I worked. I designed and coded the XML framework, HTML templates, and Flash elements.