Paper short abstract:

This panel explores George Moses Horton as an oral poet, from Oral Horton To Written Horton, and Now Digital Horton. This concept of “experiencing” is entirely new in fiction narration. Through the creation of an Acoustic Avatar, we demonstrate how the user can “immerse” oneself in Horton’s poetry.

Paper long abstract:

This panel explores George Moses Horton as an oral poet, from Oral Horton To Written Horton, and Now Digital Horton. Using the tools of digital technology such as virtual and augmented reality, we can transport the reader (viewer) back to the Antebellum Chapel Hill, in the 1830s.

This concept of “experiencing” something—of having an “experience”—is entirely new in fiction narration. This is because narration had been limited to literacy, books, and reading. Here was a new way to “experience” a narrative—without reading. Like Torben Grodal, Professor of Film and Media studies at the University of Copenhagen, we will present Horton's poetry as a role-playing game (RPG) that is like a “real-life experience”. We ask, how might it be possible to use virtual reality to do just that—to “experience” Horton’s world as an 'embodied' experience”? We focused on analyzing the activities of a player through three angles: character creation, character interaction, and game mechanics.

In collaboration with Dr. Cecil Brown from Stanford University’s Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA), Ph.D. candidate Tylar Campbell from Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT), and Dr. Steve DiPaola at the SIAT iVizLab, we were able to create a virtual space for Horton and occupy this immersive experience. In our demonstration, we create an Acoustic Avatar of George Moses Horton to show how the user can “immerse” oneself in Horton’s poetry.