I wanted my letters in space always to face the primary tracked point of view. If the tracked reader is positioned at the edge of a plane of letters and she turns to face the plane edge-on, the letters turn to face her. Their images overlap, occlude one another — partially or wholly — and recede in view since the majority of them will be successively more or less distant. ‘Normally’ the surfaces of the larger closer letters would cover the more distant smaller letters. However, because of the ‘bug,’ smaller letter outlines are clearly discernible within but ‘over’ the forms of the nearer letters.
Given these circumstances, and because, I believe, all the letter forms are familiar — both visually and symbolically legible — and because we know what their relative scale ‘should be,’ this produces a striking and somewhat bizarre visual illusion.
We assume that even though the smaller letters are rendered ‘over’ the larger ones, they must be more distant. Thus, what we see is a very deep and narrow corridor formed from letter shapes, with the most distant smallest letters visible in completely edged outline, apparently farthest off, as if inscribed on a tall, thin distant end ‘wall’ of the corridor. Moreover, the reader is able to move ‘into’ the corridor formed by this plane of letter shapes.
This powerful perceptual experience is demonstrable and repeatable, despite its artificiality and strangeness. The question arises, why should this phenomenon be so immediate and effective? As we asked above, why doesn’t the linguistic materiality of the graphic forms and structures run counter to their visuality, counter to whatever illusion of space may or may not be generated? At this point I began to formulate a hypothesis: literal forms are highly effective for delineating space in immersive virtual environments.
I believe that there are a number of quite common sense related reasons for this. Letter forms are relatively complex and the differences instantiated in this complexity are necessarily and systematically significant. Letter forms are both complex and arbitrary but they are also familiar and rational seeming. They are instantly recognizable and encountered with remarkable, perhaps unique, frequency by any subject in a culture where the set of script forms in question is current, particularly, of course, by subjects who use these forms to read and write.
Moreover we have a very well entrenched set of expectations in relation to the relative size of these arbitrary graphic shapes. If we believe them to be on the same plane, we expect literal elements all to be of a similar or commensurate size (equal constituents of the same text) or, if they are of different sizes, we expect there to be a paratextual reason for this (because, for example, the letters are part of an emphasized word or a title). If we see words or letters which are larger than the letters surrounding them and there is no paratextual reason for this, we are likely to think that these letters are closer to us than any surrounding smaller letters.
Given these circumstances, and because, I believe, all the letter forms are familiar — both visually and symbolically legible — and because we know what their relative scale ‘should be,’ this produces a striking and somewhat bizarre visual illusion.
We assume that even though the smaller letters are rendered ‘over’ the larger ones, they must be more distant. Thus, what we see is a very deep and narrow corridor formed from letter shapes, with the most distant smallest letters visible in completely edged outline, apparently farthest off, as if inscribed on a tall, thin distant end ‘wall’ of the corridor. Moreover, the reader is able to move ‘into’ the corridor formed by this plane of letter shapes.
This powerful perceptual experience is demonstrable and repeatable, despite its artificiality and strangeness. The question arises, why should this phenomenon be so immediate and effective? As we asked above, why doesn’t the linguistic materiality of the graphic forms and structures run counter to their visuality, counter to whatever illusion of space may or may not be generated? At this point I began to formulate a hypothesis: literal forms are highly effective for delineating space in immersive virtual environments.
I believe that there are a number of quite common sense related reasons for this. Letter forms are relatively complex and the differences instantiated in this complexity are necessarily and systematically significant. Letter forms are both complex and arbitrary but they are also familiar and rational seeming. They are instantly recognizable and encountered with remarkable, perhaps unique, frequency by any subject in a culture where the set of script forms in question is current, particularly, of course, by subjects who use these forms to read and write.
Moreover we have a very well entrenched set of expectations in relation to the relative size of these arbitrary graphic shapes. If we believe them to be on the same plane, we expect literal elements all to be of a similar or commensurate size (equal constituents of the same text) or, if they are of different sizes, we expect there to be a paratextual reason for this (because, for example, the letters are part of an emphasized word or a title). If we see words or letters which are larger than the letters surrounding them and there is no paratextual reason for this, we are likely to think that these letters are closer to us than any surrounding smaller letters.
