H|U|M|B|O|T 1999-2004 CONTENT II created by Philip Pocock 2001.

http://www.humbot.org/static/new/content2.html

Abstract

Database
Dilemma

Installation
h|u|m|b|o|t

Mount Mount Chimborazo plant, topography and

altitude mapping,
source: Alexander von Humboldt, Geography of
Plants, 1807.

Humboldt and H|U|M|B|O|T's New

Nature of Narrative for a New
Narrative of Nature
Humboldt invented a new nature of
narrative for a narrative of nature two
centuries ago, freeing scientific
scholars and writers from hiding behind
an 'Enlightened' objectivity, freeing
natural scientists to enter their own
pictures and models of a natural world,
to see themselves as part of their
observations.
H|U|M|B|O|T takes a quantum d-video and
ascii leap in this regard. Aided by
hypertext, database, neural net and data
visualization computation, as well as
affordable digital content production
and delivery technology, H|U|M|B|O|T's
audience enters the picture as well, and
traces of what they find and when,
become the cyberscore for editing what
future audience members will be
watching, when and if they choose to set
H|U|M|B|O|T in its new autopilot
cybercinema mode.
This collaborative mise en scne is
unprecedented in expanded digital
cinema. In short, Humboldt and his

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"Towards the
end of our
journey this
last collection
formed
|forty-two
boxes
containing a
herbal of 6,000
equinoctial
seeds, shells
and insects ...
Often, to add
new geological
specimens we
had to throw
away others
long before.
Such sacrifices
were no less
painful than
what we lost
through
accidents."
Source: A.v.
Humboldt,
"Personal
Narrative of a
Journey to the
Equinoctial
Regions of the
New Continent
1799 - 1804".

Kohonen Mapping
of Humboldt's
book "Personal
Narrative..."
taken passage
by passage and
marked-up
subjectively by
h|u|m|b|o|t
readers
according to 4
parameters emotion and
modifier,

20.05.2008 22:51 Uhr

H|U|M|B|O|T 1999-2004 CONTENT II created by Philip Pocock 2001.

http://www.humbot.org/static/new/content2.html

H|U|M|B|O|T readers supply the

cyberscript. H|U|M|B|O|T authors add
hypermovies, and the resulting well or
web of travel-as-art-as-information, a
deep cyberatlas if you like, is
presented to audiences for navigation.
As such, along with Humboldt and
H|U|M|B|O|T authors, the audience
becomes a co-traveller, their itinerary
tracing possible travels, hypermovies,
for future author-audiences.
[Back: Remapping Humboldt]
[Next: Cinema not Near you but In you.]

keyword and
commentary,
location and
position, and
time.
The number of
squares are the
result of the
number of
primary
concepts
contained in
Humboldt's
entire book,
cover to cover.
The color of
each square
indicates, in
ascending order
- opaque to
bright yellow the number of
passages
associated
within a single
concept. The
arrangement of
the squares
indicates
'neighborhoods'
of concepts those in
proximity share
similar content
and those
distant,
disparate
content.
The Kohonen
Self-Organizing
Mapping carried
out on
Humboldt's text
looks for
crucial
markings 'read
into' his text
by h|u|m|b|o|t
readers. The 4
markers
indicating,
passage by
passage, a
subjective view
of Humboldt's
emotion and a
modifier,
keywords and

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20.05.2008 22:51 Uhr

H|U|M|B|O|T 1999-2004 CONTENT II created by Philip Pocock 2001.

http://www.humbot.org/static/new/content2.html

commentaries,
position (GPS)
and location,
as well as a
chronicles
standard
parameter of
time, in this
case
interpreted
through the
prose, i.e. "We
set off at
dawn...",
"Minutes
later", or
"After
lunch..." to an
exactness
approaching
hours, minutes
and seconds.

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20.05.2008 22:51 Uhr