10 April 2003

Eckoh Technologies voices up text with Rhetorical Rhetorical's rVoice voice synthesis gets the thumbs-up in Hemel. Rhetorical are also working with Orange. Interestingly, they are using both the UK-female and the US-female voices, for weather and news respectively: apparently the US-female voice has a better brand-fit with Ananova. 5:14:07 PM     comments

Becks Futures 2003 at ICA, Ron Mueck at National Gallery Becks Futures: mixed bag of "bedroom art": Carey Young interesting, Alan Currall funny, David Sherry painful to watch, the rest pretty so-so. The thread that ties them together looks like a kind of compulsive/obsessive behaviour. Ron Mueck: the reviews and photos in the art press don't really prepare you for the varying scale of Mueck's scultures. We start (the video room being packed) with a swaddled baby, which is lifesize to these non-parental eyes. Then: the mothers and child is tiny, as is the man in the boat, looking over your shoulder curiously. The pregnant woman is 8 feet tall (which makes her larger than you might first imagine) - and you feel like a child looking up at a gigantic adult. She is so realistic* that you realise with a lurch that if she suddenly opened her eyes and turned her head to look down at you, you would not be surprised. Unheimlich. * for instance: look at her toes, the joints white as she presses them down to counterbalance the weight of the child. 4:57:47 PM     comments