WEBVTT

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I believe in Philadelphia I often tell

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people my attachment to Philly is

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visceral. When I'm downtown or a South

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Philly restaurant, I feel remarkably

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connected. "Should I compare thee to a

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summers day? Thou art more lovely and

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more temperate.

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"Open air is a large scale interactive

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installation, where very powerful

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spotlights are actually controlled by

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the voices of participants. Most of the

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time when you see a show, a light show in

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the sky, it's actually following a score

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of music so the lights are moving to the

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beat. Instead here in Philadelphia, what

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we're doing, is if those lights move it's

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because they were reacting to the voice

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of someone who has sent a message either

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through a special iPhone app or through

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a webpage. That message arrives into our

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servers, we analyze it for volume for

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intonation for frequency, and then when

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it gets played back in the Parkway the

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lights react to those parameters. So in

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position and and in intensity." (music)

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"The project is in a way it's kind of

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like a rant line or maybe like a

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voicemail system, where you send messages

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but instead of sending them directly to

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somebody, first they go into the night

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sky. People can listen to those messages

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through the phone or through speakers

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that are any consolable in Logan Square.

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So the idea is, create a platform for

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communication, but that is visualized and

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that takes over the entire park. "Baby, it looks like you never felt sky before, well let

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all rhythm read the fine morning before

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you go blowing out those stars of

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tomorrow and I'm Ray by the way. Then

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yeah".  "When your message appears in the

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night sky, the system notifies you it's

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like.. 'hey it's your turn here comes your

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message' and all the lights actually find

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you with GPS tracking and all the lights

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are oriented toward you.  So in a way you

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become part of the show, you're part of

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in the limelight so to speak but it's

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also a little bit awkward or violent

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because you feel like all of these

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lights are actually tracking you over

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the park where you can't get away from

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them, so it's a project that has a a

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sense of seduction and participation but

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then also a sense of tracking and of

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policing and just making people aware

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that these technologies have very

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accurate information about where we are

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and who we are.

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What I'm interested in is in

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self-representation, the idea that it is

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the people who make the decisions about

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what the contents will be. What you're

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actually seeing is what people have said

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and you too can be part of that dialogue