This project is conceived as a collaboration amongst theatremakers, academics, and people working in tech.

A central component of the show includes collecting data from our audience’s social media profiles. We have collaborated with Alessandro Acquisti and his team at Carnegie Mellon’s Privacy Economics Experiments Laboratory along with Ralph Gross, chief scientist for BluPanda, to develop our protocol. Upon arrival, each audience member is asked to check in at their table in exchange for a free drink. At that point, we learn where each person is sitting and begin pulling their info and integrating it in our database. As the show progresses, the master computer sends specific instructions to each tablet to incorporate personal information about the people sitting at that particular table. For example, the tablet will have a series of ads running, similar to tablets at airport restaurants. When an audience member sits down and checks in, those ads begin to include picture that are relevant to them, such as their school or place of work.

We are also working with Joe Holt and Daniel Dickison, coders for Bandcamp.com, the international music streaming website, who have developed a new system for sorting and integrating the data-mined content while synchronizing playback across 20-30 wireless tablet computer and onto the large onstage screens.

Video designer David Bengali is integrating the data and designing all other visual content.