“Last Words / TypeTrace” (2019-2023)
dividual inc. (Dominique Chen + Takumi Endo)
Based on a work created for the 2007 “Haptic Literature” exhibition at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, this participatory installation was newly commissioned and produced for the Aichi Triennale 2019. Using TypeTrace, software we developed to record and replay the typing process (also used in my scientific research [35]), we invited an open online audience to answer the question, “If you were to disappear from this world ten minutes from now, what message would you write and to whom?” Over the course of the exhibition, more than 2,000 anonymous typing records were submitted. These were presented in a single room equipped with one Kinetic Keyboard (a keyboard that moves in sync with TypeTrace data) and twenty-four wall-mounted displays. Each display reproduced the sound of its own keystrokes, and the entire space was enveloped in a soundscape of rainfall. Since then, the work has been exhibited in “END” (2022, Tokyo), “LIVES” (2022, Taipei), and “YOLO” (2023, Kaohsiung) and Ars Electronica Tokyo Garden (2020).
