Technische Beschreibung
As it happens, the computer system behind the Golem is based on the GNU/Linux operating system, the perl computer language, the apache webserver, and commodity machines, which are the basis of the world-sweeping open source movement. This choice of technologies is based on cost performance, ease of use in a creative context, and the degree to which they enable the efforts of one or a few people to be magnified many times. It seems fitting that the technical foundation of the Digital Golem is in itself a Golem on its own ? for it is the concentrated product of thousands of people working in close textual collaboration from many nations and cultures.
Complete technical description here =
http://www.transcri.be/digital/technical.html
Hardware / Software
The general architecture of the chat application has not been completely defined at this moment. It will either use apache/mod_perl or a perl-based server using for example the Perl Object Environment (POE) framework. Perl is used because the developer has much experience with it, and because it is very easy to hack. Also, it is called the only postmodern computer language for a reason; writing Perl is a uniquely creative mode of speech. It is also called the duct tape of the Internet for a reason too: it just works.
Presentation and navigation software has not yet been decided, although it will leverage linux and is leaning toward a combination of an OpenGL/X-Windows based presentation and lower resolution text terminals. One requirement is the ability to handle different languages. We have considered a low-resolution ANSI telnet terminal for each paving stone (projector) of Tsunawatari, and this is still possible especially if costs are a problem (i.e. several obsolete machines could be used). However this part also may be high resolution so that we can display photographic icons with participant's speech when available. Depending on the exhibition space it may also be cost-effective / interesting from a creative aspect to use a miniature linux box, wireless LAN, and attached projector to create an easily reconfigurable solution to visualizing a portion of the chat stream. In this sense we have been considering experimenting with different topologies for the display network in Tsunawatari.
Complete technical description here =
http://www.transcri.be/digital/technical.html