TEXT ME- An award winning interactive arts project produced in partnership with BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art

Victoria Mapplebeck (Photographer)

Research output: Non-textual formExhibition

Abstract


TEXT ME- An award winning interactive arts project which I wrote, directed and produced in partnership with two European galleries, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, in Gateshead. This multi platform project was also developed for twelve months as an interactive documentary for ARTE, a Franco German broadcaster. TEXT ME is a live and online platform which creates an evolving and living archive in which users are encouraged to reflect on both the blessings and the curses of digital communication. During Production, I developed various platforms and tools in which our audience could collect, curate and share stories from their digital past. This archive of digital stories provides an opportunity to create a dialogue with a large audience, reflecting on the ways we can mobilise hidden archives by sharing them, by moving them onto public platforms.

TEXT ME launched at BALTIC on February 14th 2016. During my time as visiting artist at BALTIC, I developed strategies for building both digital and local audience participation. Throughout the twelve month development period, I explored the ways in which multiplatform producers can create communities and build audiences without a ‘central hub’. In partnership with BALTIC’s Education and Outreach team I devised and delivered an extensive series of workshops and live events in which participants, local secondary schools and art groups could create their own artworks, inspired by their own digital footprint. I also lead a TEXT ME workshop programme for Royal Holloway students, encouraging participants to produce short films and artworks which bought to life a story from their digital archives. The TEXT ME Call to Action asks users to explore the memories contained in their own digital archives and to submit their story to the TEXT ME Story Mobile. My aim is to collect hundreds of texts and voicemails which reflect on the complex cultural approaches to digital communication and archiving practices.

In 2014, TEXT ME won The Merging Media Prize for Best European Cross platform Project and The 2014 Pixel Lab Prize. The Pixel Lab ‘Supports the film and media industries in their transition to a digital age, specialising in new ways to engage with audiences across multiple platforms’. TEXT ME was also featured in Wired magazine and was selected for University UK’s 20 Ideas for Life, one of 20 national research projects, which celebrated ‘the impact universities have on everyday lives in the UK and beyond, including the value and importance of their world leading research’.

On November 4th 2016 , the six week TEXT ME exhibition opened at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, showcasing the best of the audience stories gathered during the twelve month workshop period. These stories are part of growing archive of digital memories which will be published on the final TEXT ME website.


TEXT ME website:http://www.textmeproject.com.
BALTIC project page: http://www.balticmill.com/whats-on/quay-gallery/text-me-project
Original languageEnglish
Media of outputOnline
Publication statusPublished - 4 Nov 2016

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