the laser pointer and the cursor

For some years now I have wanted to comment on the "cursor". Now is the time! Having just sat through a conference almost entirely dictated by powerpoint-style slides (my own talk included) it was interesting to note the role of the laser pointer and its digital analog, the cursor. Once I noticed it, the pointer seemed to sit upon the surface of the content, hovering over slides like an invisible elephant hovers over a dinner table.

For many of the talks speakers employed the supplied green laser pointer, whether they needed to or not. This green dot-making device was brandished with abandon, sometimes on the side walls of the auditorium as speakers forgot to release the switch, once or twice into the audience, but most often, in a jumpy-skippy fashion across regions of the projector screen. It is very hard to hold such a fine point steady from a distance, a phenomenon which is made more apparent in large auditoria since here the speaker stands far from the projection screen. By and large the pointer was not needed for indicating details on the slides. Instead it was used as a crutch, perhaps giving the speaker something to focus on apart from the audience.

The worst case I saw was of a speaker using the laser pointer to hop from word to word of his bullet points as he read the text from his slide... "follow the bouncing ball and sing along". Oh dear. The talk was otherwise very interesting, but it was hard not to giggle at the invisible elephant. Was I the only one who could see it?

Of course slide presentation software typically allows the speaker to use the mouse cursor. A few speakers did take advantage of this. This technique has the advantage of allowing the speaker to position the cursor, then leave it steadily in place. However laptop trackpads can be a fiddly means of positioning this cursor under pressure. One amusing episode ensued when a speaker attempted to operate the controls of a movie player on the trackpad, whilst looking behind him at the large projection screen on which the movie was being displayed. It took him awhile to negotiate the reverse mapping and trackpad sensitivity!

The mouse cursor's continued presence onscreen after its relevance has been removed is seldom a source of frustration for speakers... although it should be! Some software has the cursor vanish after a period of inactivity. This can be helpful, or it can be problematic depending on the speaker's needs for a specific slide.

It is interesting to note people's ability to see "through" a cursor. A number of presenters had beautiful images to show, and they left the cursor positioned right in the middle of them, unnoticed. I have seen Skype sessions, artists showing their imagery, movies being viewed... all with the cursor smack bang in the middle of the screen. It is amazing how readily we are able to see past this visual obstacle. This is akin to my experience of (for instance) Melbourne's suburban and city streets — I can often see past the tangle of power lines, tram wires, advertising signage and other visual pollution to admire a "beautiful" street (see Robin Boyd - The Australian Ugliness). This experience is also the norm when viewing Japanese temples and gardens. They are typically surrounded by old rubbish, blue tarpaulins, pipes, taps, wires, fences and signs but tourists come to admire their beauty and manage to turn a blind eye to all of this.

"So smarty pants. What did you do?", I can hear you ask. Well, I just added slides with arrow markers pre-placed to highlight the sections of slide I wanted to discuss. These appeared and vanished as I hit the space bar on the keyboard — something that is easy to do in an instant, without error. It mostly worked. Except I once forgot to use the arrow and pointed with my hand. Then when I tried to progress to the next slide I of course made the arrow appear at the point I had just discussed... a glitch. But not catastrophic I think and worth the improved pointing I achieved elsewhere in my talk.

...thank goodness for selective attention. Without it we have already polluted most of the world's potentially "beautiful" views. Anyway, feel free to leave the cursor on my nose when you Skype me. I know that you can't see this invisible elephant :-)

graffiti for butterflies - elliott malkin

BLDGBLOG has a link to Graffiti for Butterflies, a project that uses sunscreen and paint to post signs on walls for migrating Monarch butterflies. It's certainly out there! Why not just plant more Milkweed? Well, he did that too. I wonder if the signs painted in sunscreen are recognisable to a butterfly. It should be pretty easy to set up a controlled test to see their effect. I hope the butterflies don't come to a sticky end. At least they won't get sunburnt.

Signs that say "No Dogs on the Velodrome" in dog language would be really handy. Painting the city's statues with "No Pigeons" in pigeon-visible text would be another good application for this idea. Maybe we could protect Australia's borders from alien species in a similar way. OK, now I am being silly. The butterfly idea was cute and well-meaning. I should not be facetious. I have no idea though how you could present useful data to a butterfly or just about any other species. Route info.? This is beyond the comprehension of most taxi drivers.

library of dust

In keeping with the themes of biology and decay, I stumbled on a post (on BLDG BLOG) about a book, Library of Dust. The book is a collection of photographs of unclaimed, cremated human remains from a psychiatric hospital — compacted and tinned humans, stored like corn and beans on a supermarket shelf!

Unlike the bones of the catacombs beneath Paris or the ossuary of Sedlec, the human form of the remains has been completely obliterated. Whilst the bones of Paris and Sedlec have been jumbled, these human remains have been kept separate from one another. Each can of ashes leaves its unique, visible mark on the world through the patterns of corrosion on its surface. The ex-patients may have been tinned and stacked, but they regain a unique identity in a most unlikely way. Library of Dust is a strange, visually arresting and thought provoking record of people past.

Image: From Library of Dust by David Maisel, published by Chronicle Books

on surfaces and the superficial

Whilst it was Lin Miaoke whose face adorned the screens televising the Olympic Games opening ceremony in Beijing, it was the voice of Yang Peiyi that emerged from the loudspeakers. One girl was not pretty enough to please the Chinese organisers, the other couldn't sing well enough.
Of course television is more about vision than sound. Newspapers can present visual information too, but sound is foreign to the medium. In an age when radio has taken a back-seat, so much of what we build and value is purely superficial. In the text Ecological Design, the authors lament that since photography and architectural magazines have become the dominant means for architects to display their wares, we have become too concerned with a building's appearance. Insufficient attention is paid to what a building is and what it does, especially where its roles in ecosystems are concerned.
Many (all?) nations bury their dirty laundry, some more so than others. Here we see China presenting the face the world deserves... a pretty face no doubt. The face the world wants to see. But not the face of the song. Would we place a pretty model on the podium in place of the less attractive athlete who actually won? Not yet.