Transformation

When Proboscis asked me to create “Transformation,” a series of 27 six-sided story cubes to be published as part of the Diffusion series, I was overjoyed. I love working with Proboscis, and I’m *always* in it for the story.

This commission was offered in a London pub over an animated conversation with Giles Lane, Orlagh Woods, and Joshua Fouts about cultural relativism as juxtaposed with cultural collaboration.

While working on the cubes I started to envision how they could be amplified to demonstrate which images are significant to each story in which they play a role, so I reproduced the entire set of cubes in a virtual world. It became possible to collaborate with anyone, anywhere, on a story generated by the cubes, which are now not bound by the laws of physics or their uniform size in the physical world.

26 of the cubes contain screen shots of a Mind Map I created called “Transformation,” and each segment corresponds to a different letter of the alphabet. As a writer, I am obsessed with the infinite possibilities represented by the untouched snow of the alphabet, from which all words and spoken ideas arise. But I also know that some ideas don’t have linguistic equivalents, and this is what the 27th cube represents.

The 27th cube contains an augmented reality marker on it, the source code for which was generously shared by Boris Kiselshteyn of Popcha!, who was getting married only days later and remembered to send the information despite being at the height of pre-wedding frenzy so that a video could be created by DIP and Pooky Media, documenting the virtual installation. (I first met Pooky at Second Life's "Relay for Life," where they raised $240,000.)

I must stop here and say a few words about Second Life's Pooky Amsterdam and Rosco Teardrop. The level of attention to detail they applied to this process is proof positive that there is no discernible distinction between workable realities. They worked as quickly as Boris did. This is the main benefit of creating one’s own hours--you might be up until 3 am like Rosco was in Scotland while the rest of the team was in NYC--but you can also take an unauthorized three day weekend if you’re moving, which Rosco was, or shoot out an email with source code while standing in line to have your tuxedo tailored.

The code that he sent became the basis for the 27th cube, an augmented reality marker that triggers a three dimensional cube on screen when held up in front of a webcam at 1000InchesInLoveland.com. The images triggered by the augmented reality cube can change at any time, creating a transformative fluidity in the 27th cube that continues on as the alphabet strives, in tandem, to tell the collective story of Transformation.

Transformation will be launched by Proboscis in September.