The performance is a ritual for a multi-actor-network. Together with the audience we research the awareness of presence in a social system 'in which people and communication technologies have agency'. We developed the Tele_Trust network through analyzing social interaction in physical public space and via various communication technologies. We deconstructed these forms of interaction and re-assembled them. This process resulted in a multi-sensory mediated communication system, best described as: 'a Dialogue between smart phones and a DataVeil'.
Agency in this system is performed by both: people (spectators, smart phone users, Data-Veil wearers); as well as by technology (webcams, smartphones & free app, a led screen, headsets, embodied interface ('DataVeil'), gumsticks and database) - all wirelessly connected. The multi-sensory exchange between all agents and platforms is developed in a combination of joomla, unix, javascript, MySQL, flash, WIFI, UMTS, and c++.
The performance is established through the exchange between all participants - who are either virtual or physically present. In the Tel_Trust system the online database has a central position. The database is fed by user generated content. During the performance each participant adds his or her portrait or statement. The database connects participants in the DataVeils and participants using their smartphones real time, worldwide.
'For these nodular subjects, ‘disconnection’ means ‘amputation’. I am part of the networks and the networks are part of me...I link, therefore I am.' (William J. Mitchell, ME++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City.)
User-generated content is visible on the online database:
http://www.teletrustlab.net
