THE FILE ROOM: AN INTERACTIVE COMPUTER PROJECT ADDRESSING CULTURAL
CENSORSHIP

Paul Brenner

Project Director
Randolph Street Gallery,
Chicago

Maria Roussos

Production Coordinator
Electronic Visualization Laboratory,
University of Illinois/Chicago

Introduction

The File Room is an illustrated archive of cases of cultural censorship
throughout history and around the world. Presented both as a public
interactive installation at the Chicago Cultural Center from May to
September of 1994 and as a continuous web server housed at the University of
Illinois at Chicago, The File Room was in development for over two and a
half years. Our goal was to extend this project well beyond Chicago, drawing
upon the participation of contributors world-wide and likewise providing
global access to the compiled textual, visual, and sonic information. This
project addressed the issues of public interactivity and the use of Mosaic
as a tool for a kiosk-like presentation.

The Development of The File Room

Conceived by Muntadas, an internationally renowned artist, The File Room is
the latest project in a series of works that address power relations in
society. The series has included his internationally-presented installations
The Board Room and The Stadium. Born in Spain and based in New York since
1971, Antonio Muntadas' artworks take form in video, multi-media and
installation. In the past three years his projects have been exhibited in
many cities. He has recently completed a ten year video study of the art
world entitled "Between the Frames".

Two and one-half years ago, Muntadas and Randolph Street Gallery, a
nonprofit artist-run center that supports and generates activities at the
intersection of art and society, began developing The File Room for public
presentation in Chicago. As the archive is symbolic of the need for free and
open communication, and because its format employs the latest in
telecommunications technology, Muntadas created a collaborative forum for
developing The File Room. Over a series of visits by Muntadas to Chicago,
The File Room has developed as a collaboration drawing upon the resources
and expertise of many organizations and individuals around the world. At an
artist residency in September 1993 at the University of Illinois at Chicago,
Muntadas publicly introduced the project and began working with its School
of Art and Design and the Electronic Visualization Laboratory to develop the
technical elements of a hypertext, multi-media database which is now
accessible through the Internet.

Experiencing The File Room

The File Room challenges existing definitions of what constitutes
censorship, and creates a forum for discussion and exploration of the many
issues surrounding acts of cultural censorship. Presented by the Department
of Cultural Affairs at the Chicago Cultural Center, the physical design of
The File Room installation symbolizes information control. The walls of the
space are lined from floor to ceiling with metal filing cabinets. Seven
computer terminals accessing the archive replaced file drawers in the
cabinets. The archive opens with definitions of censorship gathered from a
number of different sources. These divergent opinions establish a wide range
of what constitutes an act of censorship and introduce the subjective nature
of the concept.

The project includes cases of censorship in the areas of visual art, music,
dance, theater, performance, literature etc. and has not been limited to
cases of censorship of individual artworks. Included among the instances of
cultural censorship are the suppression of artists' careers; bans on entire
media or subject matters at various times in history; self-suppression by
those in fear of reprisals; denied or limited access to information on
cultural achievements by entire groups or non-inclusion of such information
in "authoritative" sources compiled by majority representatives. The
continually growing archive has begun as a prototype, to be shaped by
ongoing research and by submissions from around the world.

The File Room and Mosaic

NCSA Mosaic was chosen because it favors the long term existence of the
project and allows it to grow continuously through submissions of censorship
cases by users and researchers. It is also an excellent tool for creating
documents, in particular collectively, as it provides an easy-to-learn
language. Its unlimited multimedia capabilities on a variety of platforms
allow easy integration of images and sound that enhances the
internationality of this project and its collaborative nature.

As a result of Mosaic's extensive accessibility and approachability, it does
not provide the flexibility required for public presentation purposes. The
fact that Mosaic would be used by a large number of people at a walk-up
kiosk type setting had to be considered. The audience of such a public venue
ranged from children to elderly and the installation was visited by diverse
groups of people, schools, and individuals. Based on our observations, the
majority of individuals had no computer experience and had to be guided
extensively on how to use the mouse and navigate through the archive. In
addition, many Mosaic features designed for individual use -the personal
annotations, the hotlist and the global history options- did not apply for a
public installation and had to be omitted. Restricting the users from
exploring other sites on the network was also significant in focusing use on
the File Room project. Considering that the installation was open to the
public for three and one half months from morning to evening emphasized the
importance of system security. Many restrictions had to be applied in order
to confine the users from accessing the system and to avoid constant
maintenance.

These issues were addressed by creating a customized version of Mosaic,
which left out many of its unique features at the installation site. Help
screens specific to this documentation were created and provided feedback
with illustrations and sound to facilitate user interaction. The menu
options were disabled leaving only the ones necessary for navigating through
the archive. Mosaic was sized to full screen and its window could not be
closed or resized. That enabled additional system security and restricted
the user from accessing the underlying operating system. A set of programs
was developed that were activated every time the screen saver appeared. The
screen saver caused the program to terminate and become reactivated in the
background. This prepared Mosaic for the next user by clearing the global
history and starting from the home page.

Customization of Mosaic was important to create a self standing system,
suitable for this type of public installation and presented a challenge in
combining the collaborative nature of the project and attracting the
participation of a broad audience.

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge Johnny Lawson, Dana Plepys and Dan Sandin for
their constant help and support. A large number of institutions and
individuals have contributed to the development and production of the File
Room project. We would like to thank them all.

Financial support for The File Room has been provided in part by the
National Endowment for the Arts, the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation and the
Playboy Foundation.



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Paul Brenner, Exhibitions Director for Randolph Street Gallery, is the
Project Director for The File Room. He was Gallery Coordinator for Real Art
Ways (Hartford, CT) 1987-1991 and holds a B.A. in Psychology and Art History
from Trinity College (Hartford). Brenner has lectured and participated in
panel discussions at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the
University of Illinois at Chicago, Northwestern University (Evanston, IL),
Columbia College (Chicago), and the Hartford Art School, and has served as a
juror for the Chicago Academy for the Arts, the Palmer Square Arts Festival
and the City of Chicago Artist's Fellowship Program.

Maria Roussos, M.S and M.F.A student at the Electronic Visualization
Laboratory, University of Illinois at Chicago, is the Hypertext Developer
and Programmer for The File Room. Her experience in developing multimedia
projects has provided the expertise required to contribute in this
collaborative project. Her current research interests include human computer
interaction, virtual reality and interactive computer graphics/computer art.

contact: mroussos@eecs.uic.edu