Saturday, August 20, 2011

A an odd app

The Book Bench: The Victorianator : The New Yorker

I thought of Tim, the only bushranger, right wing, cat and chicken wrangling pub poet and zine creator in all of Australia:

Here’s how it works: a poem appears on the screen of your iPhone (you need an iPhone for this app). You read the poem aloud into the phone (using the speaker setting) in a monotone. Then a steampunk robot takes you through a series of gestures that produce voice effects on the poem you just read. So, for example, sweeping an arm toward the sky will raise the pitch of the poem, whereas extending your arm will extend the sound of the word. The variations in pitch make the poem sound like it’s being read by an eminent Victorian; you’re scored on how closely your gestures match the robot’s.

I thought he would like that, wouldn't he, Tim?

1 comment:

TimT said...

The kicker is at the end - you get scored. So that makes it a competition does it? (Actually I'm still a little confused how it works).

I do, I think, channel my inner-Victorian a lot while reading (that was the most recent era which saw widespread public readings of poetry I think, so it's an apt comparison). Some other odd characters come out as well.