#hashtagProject
Role: Creative Producer, Narrative Designer
#HASHTAGPROJECT is a provocative theatrical experiment in the creation of extremist movements and online protests.
A collaboration between American, German, and Chinese theater artists and interactive technology designers, #HashtagProject translates online social interactions into an immersive and surprising live performance event where the audience is making the decisions about what happens next.
From hashtag diplomacy to the ease of posting eye-witness videos, social media sites have created powerful ways to gather critical support, and sometimes, to manipulate it. This show takes the audience on a collective journey through the process of self-identification and engagement that motivates people to join online social movements.
Project
Overview
The theater is re-imagined as an online social media platform dedicated to social justice issues. The audience is divided into two groups in separate 360-degree immersive projection screen spaces that simulates the experience of being part of an online social media community in the “real” space of the theater. Audiences are introduced to the ways they can use the platform through collective and individual physical actions and interactive gaming. The audience is able to interact directly with the show’s virtual environment through the use of motion capture technology to follow movement and to translate it into digital representations. The performance culminates in a climactic reveal that the two audience groups have been manipulated to support opposite sides of the same conflict, each one believing that their side was the one fighting for freedom against the forces of oppression.
Photo credit: Lisa Helfert
Demo
@Transmediale
(Vorspiel)
Algorithms drive our online lives. They helps us connect with new friends and old, help us discover music we didn’t know we love, and connect with like-minded people all over the globe. Algorithms are tailored to the information that we give them, supposedly we choose how they work for us, but at some point they start to make choices for us in the name of convenience: our music, our news, etc. We become passive actors in the choices of our own lives. When does that happen? Are we aware of it when it does? And does this acquiescence to the trends of the day lead us towards more extreme views of the world rather than inclusive ones?
We are exploring how those movements gain followers and whether these movements are a threat or a boon to society. Do we want a ‘more free’ and open internet that allows for the spread of ideas without censorship? Or do there need to be limits on speech to stop the spread of terrorism? Is it always possible to separate a freedom fighter from a terrorist. Since the algorithms that many companies use to curate how and what news we receive through their sites are based around click rates and ad sales, are users deceived into thinking that the information they view on these platforms is broad and unbiased?
Project Development
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Residency (LMCC): 2016, 2017
#HashtagProject was designed and built over two summer residencies supported by LMCC. The first year was primarily dedicated to narrowing in on the central thematic and narrative questions the creative team wished to explore through an interactive extended reality installation.
We dove into research on AI, social media algorithms, algorithmic bias, data visualization, the formation of online social movements, augmented and virtual reality, the origins of the hashtag, mind control, the history of extremist movements, and the social psychologist, Stanley Milgram's experiments on obedience.
In the second summer, the team created an early proof of concept of the interactive system using Kinect sensors and projections as well as an initial narrative script for the 2018 demo presentation.
PRODUCTION HISTORY
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2018 Work-in-progress presentation: Transmediale Festival, Berlin, Germany
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2017 Devising Workshop on Governors Island, NYC
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2016 Devising Workshop on Governors Island, NYC
CREDITS
Collaborators/Creators: Jonathan David Martin, Zoey Martinson, Nikolaus Schneider, Brina Stinehelfer
Direction: Zoey Martinson
Creative Producer: Jonathan David Martin
Narrative Designer: Jonathan David Martin
Integrated Technology and Code: Xinyao Wang
Projection Design: Lianne Arnold
Animation: Dara Hamidi
Original Music: Matthew Nielson
Stage Manager: Josephine Ronga
Development of #HashtapProject is made possible through the generous support the Theatre Communications Group's Global Connections grant, the Jerome Foundation's Travel and Study grant, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Governor's Island Residency Program.