Can we stop presenting ideas through text?

A few Fridays ago, I attended the UNC C.H.A.T. festival along with a friend to check out some cool exhibits and see our professors speak. Unfortunately we got lost on Carolina campus and saw unplanned exhibits anyway, but it was a great experience nevertheless.

The first event we attended was an event called "Festival on the Hill: The Art and Culture of the DJ". We got to hear Prof Mark Butler from Northwestern University Bienen School of Music give a presentation about Jeff Mills, an influential American DJ from Detroit. Mark broke down for us the composition of "Bells (see video below)" as far as the repetition of thematic rhythms, Mills' manipulation of the turntables at slow motion, etc... for someone like me who has a very vague understanding of the art of DJ'ing, it was fascinating.

The second event was called "The Bathysphere: Motion Capture as Art" and was put together by Francesca Talenti (UNC Communication Studies) and Greg Welch (UNC Computer Science). You walked into a room, opera blasting within, an underwater scene projected on 3 sides of the walls. Then you are encouraged to pick up objects like a fishing pole, an umbrella that had motion sensors attached on them to move the corresponding images onto the walls. For example, at 0:12 of the video you see my friend interacting with a little ball to move the octopus image on the wall.

(see video below)

After interacting with the experience, I kept thinking... this was cool, but... what? What am I supposed to take away from the experience of moving projected fish images around with the fishing pole? I realize that the motion sensor technology is NEW and game-changing, and I think the artists were trying to incorporate this new capability into a gaming experience (or such is my assumption). Maybe they wanted me to take away whatever I wanted from it. What if the people interacting with the objects could assign different tones/rhythms to themselves and represent a "part of the opera"?

-----

The common theme that emerged for me out of these experiences was how the two very different presentations toyed with the idea of moving away from TEXT to present information.

By that I mean, in the Bathysphere presentation, instead of having the audience read an article/give a powerpoint lecture about the benefits of merging motion sensor technology and the interactive gaming experience... they made it into a real, physical experience with auditory and tactile stimulation that helped the participants remember the concept and appreciate the potential with multiple sensory memories leaving the arena. I personally thought such approach is most effective in our changing world where we are so used to having multiple senses be stimulated at the same time -- and thought the DJ presentation could have used a little more of it.

What if instead of just talking about Jeff Mills' background and the different musical sequences while standing up on a podium... and inserting YouTube videos here and there in the presentation... you had a turntable that the audience could come and interact with to see the technical complexity involved in the equipment? What if you asked the audience to try to pick up on different sequences and main motifs that Mills manipulate throughout the 3-minute segment... and compare amongst themselves?

With the incredible speed at which multimedia tools are being developed and adapted, I really don't fancy hearing "just another Powerpoint presentation", lest one complete with just text bullets. Let's stimulate the senses! We have 5! (or more, depending on what you believe)