LiveForm:Telekinetics distributed networked senses experiments and recipes for connected social spaces, rituals, recipes, food, people, bric-a-brac, hacked objects, electronics, and toys

Telepresence Picnic

Note from Cheri:

Summer is filled with traditional times for picnics, but why limit yourself?

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The telepresence picnic is a mobile, transgeographical, public intervention that takes place anywhere a network exists.

No longer tied to a terminal screen and keyboard, nomadic groups pack mobile feasts of sensors, antennas, robotics, food, and music and head out on the town. Networked telepresence picnic parties unfold in vacant lots, roadsides, cafés, alleyways, bars, homes and hotel lobbies, wherever bandwidth is plentiful and security guards scarce.

Each mobile 'picnic kit' contains the best of the experimental recipes, developed and refined in the Test Kitchen, assembled into complete menus, meals that are presented for public consumption.

The same menu is prepared for two simultaneous meals, held in two geographical locations. The 'picnic kit', composed of sensored and kinetic objects, batteries, cameras, monitors and food, is laid out on a surface (tables, blankets, etc) around a wireless hotspot. Public (and private) wireless hotspots are connected live to counterpart locations, transforming them into transgeographical temporary performance zones. Guests in either location can create kinetic compositions by moving the objects on their tables. The table (or any other surface) becomes an animated environment that people in geographically separate locations play together to music. Turning the dial of a clock and moving cutlery, causes kitchen utensils and other household objects to suddenly become alive and dance. Their actions are transmitted live over the network and reflected in the corresponding objects in the remote space, producing a collaborative inter-object electronic exchange through movement, gesture, and music.

picnic sightings