News Room Contributor Posts: 6904 Joined: 12 Nov 2002 | Tumbarumba: The Conceptual Art Firefox Extension
One of the more unusual Firefox extensions you're likely to see is Tumbarumba, a "frolic of intrusions" that hides 12 new short stories in web pages you're browsing and reveals them to you a little bit at a time.
The plugin is actually quite simple, although its description as "a conceptual artwork in the form of a Firefox extension" may suggest otherwise. Tumbarumba inserts story fragments into random web pages, creating sentences that flow grammatically but otherwise make no sense. Upon noticing the out-of-place sentences, users can click on them to reveal a small piece of one of the 12 short stories; further clicking unveils more and more of the story, until after several clicks the web page is completely replaced by the story, formatted in the style of the original page and including pictures from Flickr.
"Our intention is for the reader to not only have the pleasure of finding and reading the stories, but also the momentary disorientation of stumbling upon a nonsensical sentence as well as a heightened awareness of textual absurdities (of which only a fraction will be the result of Tumbarumba)," the plugin's website says. The stories in Tumbarumba are written by authors including Greg Van Eekhout, Tim Pratt, Jeff Spock and and Mary Anne Mohanraj.
For those who value their productivity, the extension's effects can be turned off for individual websites or completely. A video tutorial is available for people who want to see it in action, but the best way to learn about Tumbarumba is to simply install it. Aside from the addition of a Tumbarumba menu, the effects won't be immediate or obvious. "The idea is for it to occasionally mutate a webpage's sentence and cause you, the reader, to a moment of confusion & delight," the site says. "You can actively hunt for Tumbarumbas, but we think it more fun to stumble upon them unexpectedly."
via: Waxy.org
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Gone Gonzo Posts: 1574 Joined: 16 Jan 2008 | Oh, I am SO installing that. Looks like great fun. |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 884 Joined: 7 Dec 2008 | ... Can I just get the short stories and read 'em? I get enough surreal experiences from my relatives. |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 751 Joined: 12 Aug 2008 | i don't quite understand the purpose... |
News Room Contributor Posts: 6904 Joined: 12 Nov 2002 | The purpose is the experience. Install it and see.
Edit: I was just now reading the CBC news when I stumbled over the following line: "Ontario's gaming agency has made a payment to a man who held losing scratch-and-win tickets because he was being considerate of her needs."
I couldn't wrap my head around it. Who was "she?" How did she enter into the story? What "needs" did she have regarding a misprinted lottery ticket? Obviously I'd completely forgotten about installing Tumbarumba earlier today when I posted the story, and when I finally remembered, after struggling with that line for a full minute or two, the real effect of the extension hit home. It's not going to change my life or revolutionize my browser, but at that moment, it worked perfectly. Kudos to the creators.
And now I'm off to read a bit of a story. |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 1074 Joined: 21 Nov 2007 | Sounds cool, I hope to install it later. |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 2614 Joined: 6 Mar 2008 | CoverYourHead:
... Can I just get the short stories and read 'em?
Yeah, that's pretty much what I was thinking. I mean, it's a neat idea, and I appreciate that the creators are trying to do something different, but it would get old pretty quick I think. |
Tumbarumba: The Conceptual Art Firefox Extension
One of the more unusual Firefox extensions you're likely to see is Tumbarumba, a "frolic of intrusions" that hides 12 new short stories in web pages you're browsing and reveals them to you a little bit at a time.
The plugin is actually quite simple, although its description as "a conceptual artwork in the form of a Firefox extension" may suggest otherwise. Tumbarumba inserts story fragments into random web pages, creating sentences that flow grammatically but otherwise make no sense. Upon noticing the out-of-place sentences, users can click on them to reveal a small piece of one of the 12 short stories; further clicking unveils more and more of the story, until after several clicks the web page is completely replaced by the story, formatted in the style of the original page and including pictures from Flickr.
"Our intention is for the reader to not only have the pleasure of finding and reading the stories, but also the momentary disorientation of stumbling upon a nonsensical sentence as well as a heightened awareness of textual absurdities (of which only a fraction will be the result of Tumbarumba)," the plugin's website says. The stories in Tumbarumba are written by authors including Greg Van Eekhout, Tim Pratt, Jeff Spock and and Mary Anne Mohanraj.
For those who value their productivity, the extension's effects can be turned off for individual websites or completely. A video tutorial is available for people who want to see it in action, but the best way to learn about Tumbarumba is to simply install it. Aside from the addition of a Tumbarumba menu, the effects won't be immediate or obvious. "The idea is for it to occasionally mutate a webpage's sentence and cause you, the reader, to a moment of confusion & delight," the site says. "You can actively hunt for Tumbarumbas, but we think it more fun to stumble upon them unexpectedly."
via: Waxy.org
Permalink