Can digital data contain our deep emotions?
We will collect anonymous last words from anyone using TypeTrace, a software that records all the processes of keyboard typing. The result will be exhibited in an installation at the Aichi Triennale 2019's venue, from August to October 2019.
When we look at our own death, what words do we spell out for the children, lovers, families and friends who are left?
And what do we think of when we read the words that hold others' "final feelings"?
This installation consists of the "TypeTrace" software for recording and reproducing letters along with temporal data typed on a keyboard, coupled with a kinetic keyboard on which the typing action is physically reproduced. By capturing and reproducing the process of writing a text in such detail, this work hints at the possibility of reading the trains of thoughts hidden behind the eventual product.
In 2007, Yukio Mishima Prize winner MAIJO Otaro, known as a "masked" writer who avoids public appearances, utilized this tool for penning a new work. He is planning to write another new novel during the period of this exhibition.
The startup, dividual inc. was launched in April 2008 by media artist Endo Takumi and information-science researcher Dominique Chen, later joined by creator Yamamoto Koichi in July of the same year. Based on their mantra, “People will always need people,” dividual has created works such as TypeTrace, which visualizes people’s typing patterns, and has also released and managed the community-based web service “rigureto” (2008 – 2017) and the photo messenger app “Picsee” (2015). dividual’s shareholders included many prominent angel investors such as the likes of Ieiri Kazuma and Director of the MIT Media Lab, Joi Ito. The company was acquired by SmartNews Inc. in January 2018; dividual continues to operate and manage their pre-existing services.
| 2018 | Dominique Chen, Hiroki Kojima, Mizuki Oka, Takashi Ikegami: Designing a Communication Space containing Agency using Writing Record InformationProceedings of the Annual Conference of JSAI JSAI2018(0), 2D2OS21a04-2D2OS21a04, 2018 |
| 2015 | Akira Kudo, Takeshi Okada, Dominique Chen: Writing Style and Revision Process of a Novelist Examined through Real-Time Creative Process Data, Cognitive Studies, 2015, Volume 22, Issue 4, Pages 573-590, June 01, 2016 |
| 2012 | "The Way of TypeTrace ~ Maijo Otaro Edition": [Internet Art Future] Reality in Post Internet Era, NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC], Tokyo, Japan, 2012 |
| 2008 | "The Way of TypeTrace ~ Maijo Otaro Edition": 12th Japan Media Arts Festival, Art Division, Jury Selections,Tokyo, Japan, 2008 |
| 2007 | "The Way of TypeTrace ~ Maijo Otaro Edition": Haptic Literature, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan, 2007 |
| Artist | dividual (Takumi Endo, Dominique Chen) |
| Technical Director | Shinya Matsuyama (siro) |
| Editor | Yusuke Ujita (Thinking) |