"The 2012 launch of the Open Source initiative in August marks Legs On The Wall's foray into experimentation across the diverse disciplines that sometimes combine to create great theatre. While our first love is always the skill and artistry of physical performers, the acceleration of technology and the rate at which we absorb it into our lives, demanded a creative response.
The first creative development was a month-long residency with the emerging arts collective, Television is Dead, which is a convergence of the polymaths Bravo Child and Matt Cornell in collaboration with singer Emma Deans. They came to Legs On The Wall with an ambitious task: to build a physical internet, and we immediately said yes.
Their project, Pixel.Meat.Space... is an interactive digital playground that invites audiences of all ages to engage in physical activities that mirror those we perform online. When we held our end of development showings at the Red Box on August 24th and 25th, audiences scanned and uploaded their faces to the Cloud via helium-filled balloons, after which Matt and Bravo took them on a tour of the pipes and three-dimensional code landscapes that exist behind the flat interface of our online existence.
Though this was only the beginning of the project for Television is Dead, the importance of Pixel.Meat.Space... was immediately apparent for the test audience. Amidst the fun and imagination of building a physical internet was a tool to help people better understand what happens when we carry out an online activity, such as upload our photos. We are led to believe that all data is stored mysteriously in these cloud-servers, creating a care-free digital utopia. A physical encounter with the real systems of the internet, and the frustration of not being able to reclaim your photo once the balloons drifted too high, were a clear lesson in how erroneous this utopia is."
More at: http://www.legsonthewall.com.au/studio/open-source/2012-2/creative-dev-1/