Creative Tech Week

Cellphonia: Our Town Selfie knits discrete remote selfie video performances into a new media homage to Our Town. Every scene submitted through the app by anyone with a selfie performance produces a new ephemeral version of the play. Audiences can mix actors for unique downloads. Our Town is particularly suited for this remake because it needs no set or props and has a large cast. All actors receive a URL link to their performance version. Cellphonia: Our Town Selfie builds on Steve Bull's Cellphonia engine developed from a 2005 NYSCA grant that has had 12 unique audio performances at such venues as the ZeroOne Festival, NIME, E.A.T. Revisited at Stevens Institute, Harvestworks' New York Electronic Art Festival and most recently Wave Farm this June. The project will be installed physically in a room that is on the ground floor in the hub where other like events are happening. The artist will produce the first curated Selfie Movie and that will be projected on the wall to seed the project. We will create 2 to 3 booths (dependent on space), similar to voting booths or Photo Booth (each booth is 5' x 8') where the participant would record their part in the play. Each booth is a designated character of the play Our Town. The part is uploaded to the server and stitched in the next cycle of the play that is projected outside of the booths in the greater room. The play cycle is projected on the wall outside of the booths. It also includes the ability for online users to submit their parts and be stitched into the next play cycle. The artist will be filtering the selfie's as they come in so the content will be managed. By automatically assembling multiple selfie performances, Cellphonia: Our Town Selfie exploits performance democratization and remote direction. We would need wifi connection, monitors or video projector, webcams and teleprompters (laptop computers) for each booth. Harvestworks will provide the majority of the equipment but we need wifi.