May
24, 2002
Front-Page
News
Do the Locomotion
An article in the current issue of MIT’s Technology Review
focuses on virtual-reality research being done at Mount Holyoke,
the University of Utah, the University of Minnesota, and Vanderbilt
University. The magazine reports that the four schools are in
the first year of a five-year, $4-million grant from the National
Science Foundation to develop a “locomotion interface,”
technology through which users will experience realistic visual
and perceptual cues while navigating within a virtual world. The
focus of the work, writes staff editor David Cameron, is the University
of Utah’s Treadport, which is essentially a treadmill surrounded
by large video screens. The user’s movements on the treadmill
are used to control the flow of virtual “scenery” on
the screens. MHC’s team, led by Claude L. Fennema, chair
of the computer science department, is helping to develop that
technology. “Aside from two laboratories in Japan, they are
the only group exploring the potential of locomotion interface,”
writes Cameron. “And while the technology—in particular
the graphics—is still at a fairly early stage, [lead researcher
John] Hollerbach believes that within five years they should have
a commercially viable product that can be used for military simulations,
education and even recreation.” The article can be found
at http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_cameron050802.asp.
For more information about Mount Holyoke’s contribution,
see the lead article in the spring 2002 issue of Vista at
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/vista/spring02/virtual.shtml.
New Chapter
On April 28, the Boston Globe reported that Sven Birkerts,
who teaches creative writing at Mount Holyoke and the Bennington
Graduate Writing Seminars, has been named editor of Agni,
one of the nation’s most prestigious literary magazines,
which is published by Boston University. The magazine was founded
thirty years ago by Askold Melnyczuk, who has served as editor
since. Birkerts is a well-known essayist who frequently writes
about literature and the influence of contemporary technology
on writing, reading, and contemporary life. Among his works is
The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic
Age (Faber & Faber, 1994). His memoir The Sky Blue
Trades is set to be published this year by Viking. While Birkerts
will assume the editor’s position in July, he is already
firing up for the new post, saying, “Agni has been
an icebreaker, a weather balloon, a tonic hit of international
air and vigorous local growth going in the face of the status
quo. It has been full of surprise and contrariness and in my one
gesture of noncontrariness I aim to continue that. The mix is
still being meditated, and it will evolve, but the seal should
guarantee freshness inside.” Birkerts will continue teaching
at the College.
Give ’em One
for the Mother Apple Pie, a documentary film about
star athletes and their mothers written and directed by Mary C.
Mazzio ’83, aired May 4 on ESPN, and on Mother’s Day,
May 12, on ESPN2 and ESPN Classics. Apple Pie, a tribute
to the often invisible strength, courage, and power of mothers,
features Super Bowl quarterback Drew Bledsoe and his mother, Barbara;
National Basketball Association star Shaquille O’Neal and
his mother, Lucille; soccer star Mia Hamm and her mother, Stephanie;
and a number of other leading athletes and their moms. Mazzio,
herself a member of the 1992 U.S. Olympic rowing team in Barcelona,
Spain, was the writer and director of A Hero For Daisy,
an award-winning documentary about two-time Olympian Chris Ernst,
who galvanized her rowing team to storm the Yale athletic director’s
office in 1976 to protest the lack of locker room facilities for
women. For other air times for Apple Pie, visit the Web
site at www.applepiemovie.com.
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