research & publications

"Telegraphese" is a living, palpitating language. It is a curious kind of Volapuk, a universal tongue, spoken through the finger tips and in most cases read by ear. In its written form telegraphese, or "Morse," as it is called in the vernacular, is rarely seen. Yet as a vehicle of expression it is, to the initiated, as harmonious, subtle, and fascinating as the language of music itself.

—L. C. Hall, McClure's Magazine, January 1902

Animated Telegraph (2009)

The animated telegraph is built around a vintage 1890s telegraph, which I found, still operable, in an antique store.

The telegraph is reanimated with the help of an embedded computer system that allows its mechanism to interface with an associated DVD player. The embedded electronics enable the telegraph to read texts displayed on the video. When the texts appear, the telegraph springs into action, tapping out the letters in Morse code.

In addition to the C code written for the PIC microcontroller, I created pre-processing software in MaxMSP that generates portions of the C code for the microcontroller based on the desired text library.

For an example of the Animated Telegraph in action, see Let us imagine a straight line, installation no. 4.)

butch rovan

performer | composer | media artist

research & publications

Animated Telegraph (2009)