A Shakespeare Accelerator: Experiments in Kinetic Language

As Ben Rubin works out concepts and algorithms for Shakespeare Machine, a permanent installation that will open at the Public Theater in New York in fall 2012, he will transform our public interior into a laboratory of words and motion, projecting glowing white text from Shakespeare’s complete dramatic works onto walls, walkways, and other surfaces. Shakespeare’s plays are structured around the powerful forces of love, death, family, trust, jealousy, fate, and desire. But in the universe of Shakespearian physics, the subatomic forces that hold words together encompass puns, rhymes, alliteration, rhythms, and unexpected constructions. “These subtle forces of language are essential to the transcendent power of Shakespeare’s work,” says Rubin. I want to create a kind of supercollider for Shakespeare’s texts, where the particles to be accelerated and smashed together are scenes, lines, and phrases. Which words, when hurled toward each other, will cause a reaction? Which collisions will most likely provide traces of the incandescent energy, wit, and emotion that existed at the moment of these plays’ creation?”

March 5-9 — Shakespeare Readings

Beginning Monday, March 5th and continuing through March 9th, we will celebrate the opening of A Shakespeare Accelerator with a week-long continuous reading (by groups of students from Rensselaer and the surrounding community) of Shakespeare’s 67 plays, used in the installation. FREE coffee, tea and hot chocolate will be served. The readings will take place from 2–5 PM in the Context Space and are FREE.

April 9 — Typography Class Exhibition Opening

Beginning Monday, April 9, EMAC Typography class projects, inspired by this work, will be on view in the Context Space. FREE.

May 2 — Typography Class Exhibition Closing Reception

Please join us for the closing of the typography exhibition from 2-5 PM. In addition to celebrating the projects curated into the Context Space for the three week exhibition, be ready to try your hand at magnetic advice; test a piece of interactive typography software; take part in a musical and emotional survey; and watch in awe as the Reverse Graffiti Calligraphy project is performed outside in the East campus entrance driveway. FREE.