Also: it probably wouldn't be too difficult to create an interactive online extension of the show space, providing a way for people coming into the show to continue their experience once they've left. For instance, it would be trivially easy to set up a system that would take a whole bunch of digital photos taken at the passport office and automatically produce a bunch of web pages with passport information and randomly chosen fictional nationalities, family trees, etc. For instance, we could create a "founding fathers and mothers" descendant line--everyone randomly connected to other people at the show in a family tree that goes back to the Moving crew, someone fictional or even M.L.K. You might walk in and find a whole new life--part of a great Moving Crew family with brothers, parents and estranged step-children. This sort of thing is very easy to do with computers, but has other significant costs:
1) extra time for each passport (taking the photo with digital camera, getting permission to put the photos online, etc) and 2) extra time if we want to include any information about what the person did while they were at the show, or even provide them with a paper form of the generated information. Printing is expensive, noisy and time consuming.
Alternatively: if we had a projector handy, we could send the photos we take OR photos volunteered from people viewing a website directly into something like the auto-collages I've been making. What you'd get is a projection of a paper town with people's photos on top of pre-made paper cutout bodies. Then the people in the show would be looking at themselves (or online participants) in an illustration of the space. The biggest technical difficulty here would probably be physical: how do we get the images in a non-irritating/time consuming way, how do we display them (do we really have an extra digital projector). On the plus side, audiences might be more likely to interact if they can see themselves already interacting on the screen.
It's worth thinking about. My jobs will keep me in Iowa City for most of the show, but this might be an interesting way I could contribute to the show as it happened. Please let me know if you have any ideas. matt.stults@gmail.com
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2 comments:
would there be any way to link up with nadija in croatia so that people not in omaha could have a presence in this project. i really like the internet extension of space idea. i think we need it. whether it becomes an issue for the practical creation of passports on site i'm not sure. regarding permission, last time we gathered info some participants were skeptical and were very worried about controlling their info (even if fictional). would love to continue discussing this idea and inviting nadija into the conversation. i wish gmail chat could contain 3 conversations. can it?
I don't think GMail supports three way conversations, but that doesn't mean we can't do this by email or through another chat program (Yahoo's, etc).
It would be great to get Nadija involved.
Let me know if you'd like to pursue this and when.
There are lots of things we could do with webcams (for instance), though we'll be limited to where we can get Internet. I'm not sure if Bemis would appreciate us broadcasting their Internet wirelessly.
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