Objective of the project “Breaking the Wall” (funded by Austrian Research Funds FWF AR366 ) is to design a performance to research participation of the audience at live concerts, additional a counter-performance to provoke critical questions of digital development regarding Industrial Revolution 4.0.
The field of audience participation has a rich history of custom-built instruments and devices, and ways to facilitate collaborative performances. Recent advancements in sensor and interface technology have further increased this potential.
While research on audience participation shows both practical as well as theoretical perspectives, a structured creative and evaluated approach to fully explore the artistic potential is missing so far.
Thus, this art-based research project addresses the central research question “Which new ways of artistic expression emerge in a popular form of music performance when using playful interfaces for audience participation to facilitate interactivity among everybody involved?” and “How can art projects enhance critical requests on digital evolution, how information is collected and easily abused”.
On the one hand interfaces, which include the use of lasers, robots and smartphones to facilitate audience interaction are deployed in several live events, while on the other hand, the subtle interventions of the artists point at the issue of awareness how personal information can be collected without the knowledge of the spectator, the passive consumer.

Conference Proceedings

Kayali, F. Hödl, O. Bartmann, C. Kühn, U. Wagensommerer, T. Mateus-Berr, R. 2018. Learnings from an Iterative Design Process for Technology-Mediated Audience Participation (TMAP) using Smartphones. In EAI Endorsed Transactions on Creative Technologies, 5(14), pp.1-7. (Download PDF)
Kayali, F. Hödl, O. Fitzpatrick, G. Purgathofer, P. Filipp, A. Mateus-Berr, R. Kühn, U. Wagensommerer, T. Kretz, J. Kirchmayr, S. 2017. Playful Technology-Mediated Audience Participation in a Live Music Event. The ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY) 2017, Amsterdam, NL, Oct 15th - 18th. pp. 437-443.

Kayali, F., Bartmann, C., Hödl, O., Mateus-Berr, R., Pichlmair, M., 2016. Poème Numérique: Technology-Mediated Audience Participation (TMAP) using Smartphones and High-Frequency Sound IDs. In Proceedings of the INTETAIN 2016 8th International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment, June 28-30 2016, Utrecht, NL. Springer, Cham.

Poster PRESENTATIONS
Kayali, F. Hödl, O. Mateus-Berr, R. 2017. The Art-based Research Project Breaking The Wall, Poster presentation: Open House 2017, Zentrum Fokus Forschung, University of Applied Arts Vienna; 10-25-2017.
TALKS (INVITED)
Mateus-Berr, R. Delgado, J. Lerchbaumer, A. Kühn, U. Kayali, F. Hödl, O. Breaking the Wall for Critical Requests on Digital Evolution 4.0. Extended abstract and Talk: INTERVENTIONS: Scientific and Social Interventions in Art Education European InSEA Congress 2018, Aalto University, Helsinki, 18.-21.06.2018.