Boldly Going Beyond the Printed Page

Imagine flipping a switch and transforming your ordinary kitchen table into a glowing electronic newspaper. The day’s headlines flash across the luminous surface, serving up world events with your morning coffee.

Now imagine plopping into your favorite armchair and listening to jungle sounds as you read the children’s classic “Curious George.” Monkeys hoot and lions roar in the headrest around your ears as you run your hands over pictures embedded with sensors.

Sound too farfetched?

Think again.

Just as the printing press catapulted medieval minds into a new age, the worlds of art and science are now converging to produce the dreamy books of tomorrow.

These whimsical creations, like props out of “Star Trek,” are transforming the way people read and gather information.

“We are in a revolution in information delivery and composition,” said Gary Chapman, director of the 21st Century Project, a research and education program on science and technology at the University of Texas at Austin.

Some of the most daring expressions are coming from the Silicon Valley.

Artists, engineers and others from Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center are exploring how the ancient practice of reading is evolving in the digital age. Their ruminations have produced 11 strange and curious inventions--all part of a new exhibit called “Experiments in the Future of Reading,” on display here at the Tech Museum of Innovation, which is run by a nonprofit group.

The exhibit offers an exotic glimpse into a form of communication that began with simple pictures 25,000 years ago.

The exhibit space is dark and otherworldly, lit by shining computer screens, translucent tables and a huge comic book that visitors walk through.

“We weren’t thinking pragmatics. We were thinking wild-eyed speculation,” said Anne Balsamo, who is on the eight-member team that assembled the exhibit. “We’re interested in the potential in the word as it creates new media genres.”

Highlights from the exhibit include:

* Fluid Fiction. A computer monitor shows the text of a story called “Harry the Ape.” Small triangles rest above several of the words. If you touch a triangle with your finger, the script of the sentence bends down and new words appear, virtually rewriting the story as you look on and revealing twists and related information about the story. You can read dozens of versions of the same tale.

* Hyperbolic Reader. A long, glowing octagonal box displays a colorful cartoon world surrounding a boy named Henry. You explore Henry’s life--his school, his house, his toy collection, his dreams--by following different visual paths on the screen. It’s like exploring an Internet site through pictures.

* Reading-Eye Dog. A metal dog uses cameras and a computer to read aloud any material that is placed in front of it on a reading stand. The dog can read books, newspapers, poetry--anything in English. Monitors on the dog also display the text it is reading. You pat a button on the dog’s shoulder to tell it when to start reading and speaking. “I hope people will realize that technology can be used to help those who have sight impairments or dyslexia,” said Mark Chow, who created the dog.

* Tilty Tables. Flat surfaces resembling coffee tables have images and sayings projected onto them. As you tilt the tables--which measure 3 feet square--the images drop off the surface and new information appears.

The first of the three tables is called the Reading Table and features doodles, aphorisms and odd thoughts dreamed up by its creators.

“Re-reading a bill rarely changes how much you owe,” one says. Tip the table, and this comes up: “Reporters write the news that you read in the newspaper.”

Tip it a third time and you’ll read, “Do you think spacemen know how to write?”

Any kind of information can be projected onto the table, from the morning newspaper to maps, the creators said. If all the images were printed on paper, they would fill a sheet 40 feet wide and 40 feet long.

And then there’s the Peace Table. As you tilt it, a virtual ball travels across the surface as if in a pinball machine, landing on “hot spots,” each labeled with the name of a different language. When the ball rolls over one of the hot spots, the word for “peace” appears in that language in the center of the table.

Peace in Zulu is ukuthula. In Tongan, it’s melino. In Cherokee, it’s dohiyi.

In pig Latin, it’s eace-pay. In Klingon, it’s roj. (They used a Klingon-English dictionary for that one.) And in the language of Hippie, its peace & love, man.

The exhibit also features three massive “reading walls” that depict the history of reading, going back 25,000 years, and a studio for artists to create new kinds of books.

The project was created by an odd collection of eight people from the Palo Alto research center.

The eclectic team includes a former information design professor, an architect, a mechanical engineer, an expert in electronic music, a lighting director and a sound designer. They are known collectively as RED--for Research in Experimental Documents.

Most of the things the group dreamed up are, as the exhibit says, simply experiments. But there also is the potential for Xerox to one day reap financial rewards from the work.

The experiments are part of a fledgling movement aimed at changing the experience of reading--and the possibilities seem endless.

Several high-tech products already are available, brushing aside the need for bookmarks and other paraphernalia.

Novels can be read on portable Palm Pilots, which fit in your hand. Master of horror Stephen King recently sold half a million online copies of a new short story over the Internet rather than through conventional paper publishing. Entire libraries will soon be stored on gadgets no larger than a worn paperback, experts say.

But few of those pushing the technological envelope believe that the emerging technologies will fully replace books as we know them.

“We’re not advocating that the paper book go away, nor do we necessarily think it will,” said team member Scott Minneman. “We are, on the other hand, trying to look at a continuum between electronic books and objects that have the qualities of that leather-bound book.”

Caroline Gilchrist isn’t ready to give up her books at home, but she was delighted by the futuristic exhibit on a recent day. She had brought her 4 1/2-year-old son, John, from the San Francisco area to see up close what reading might look like in his lifetime.

“It adds a new dimension to reading,” Gilchrist said.

The exhibit also attracted scholars who are curious for a glimpse of the future.

“I thought it would be good to see some of the imaginings of reading in the future,” said Elizabeth Barkley, a professor of Web-based music courses at Foothill College in nearby Los Altos. “I think it’s fascinating.”

The exhibit runs through Sept. 3.