2011
We Are Forests is a work for public spaces, experienced and co-authored with audiences using mobile phones. This work explored ideas of intimacy in public space, starting with the question ‘what would you whisper in stranger’s ear?’. Experienced by audience members on their mobile phones in a public market space, it sought to try and create a work co-authored with an audience.
Participants begin the experience on their own in a crowded market, they receive a phone call which connects them to custom software so that when they speak their voice is recorded and then played to everyone else on the network. A mixture of pre-recorded texts and ‘imaginary’ audience contributions shapes a narrative over the course of the piece. Participants slowly begin to notice each other as they drift through the market, until at the finale live singers appear amongst the crowd in the market and begin to sing the words the audience have been speaking.
For extra info and panel discussion at Watershed after residency please visit http://www.watershed.co.uk/dshed/we-are-forests
Credits
For this project circumstance is represented by Emilie Grenier and Duncan Speakman
Software design by Arjan Scherpenisse
Created on a cross-european residency between Pervasive Media Studio Bristol, NiMK Amsterdam and Kitchen Budapest.
Thanks to Annette Wolfsberger, Victoria Tillotson, Melinda Sipos, Clare Reddington and Dan Williams