{"id":1408,"date":"2014-01-18T17:11:10","date_gmt":"2014-01-18T17:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrisspeed.net\/?p=1408"},"modified":"2014-01-19T20:42:14","modified_gmt":"2014-01-19T20:42:14","slug":"take-me-im-yours-beyond-the-supermarket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chrisspeed.net\/?p=1408","title":{"rendered":"Take Me I&#8217;m Yours: Beyond the Supermarket"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Beyond the Supermarket is a show that features supermarket goods as actors. Using the publicly available smart phone app <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/gb\/app\/take-me-im-yours\/id531525184?mt=8\">Take Me I\u2019m Yours<\/a>, a human actor interacts on stage with local products that are usually found in the cupboards and fridges of our kitchens.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond the Supermarket was first performed at the Expanded Narrative symposium earlier this year and developed by\u00a0Chris Speed, Duncan Shingleton and Lytton Smith: <a href=\"http:\/\/expandednarrative.org\/symposium\/\">http:\/\/expandednarrative.org\/symposium\/<\/a> and introduced theatre goers to the secret lives and opinions of Marmite, sugar cubes and steel wool. This humorous and disturbing tale changed the way that audience members perceived how they might in future pick up products, and encourages them to listen to what they have to say.<\/p>\n<p>The piece was performed twice and involved an actor using an iPhone extend a relationship with 8 physical objects on stage. The set up was simple, a troupe of actors has failed to turn up for a performance leaving the script writer with no show. Handed an iPhone the distraught professor turns to the objects for help. What follows is a shared audience \/ actor experience in which neither are entirely sure what the objects have in mind as the script unfolds revealing the personalities of the objects.<\/p>\n<p>The iPhone was connected to a data projector to display the live messages that are spoken back to the actor, and allows the audience to share in the emergence of a meta-narrative.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/chrisspeed.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/flat.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1409\" title=\"flat\" src=\"http:\/\/chrisspeed.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/flat.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"406\" srcset=\"https:\/\/chrisspeed.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/flat.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/chrisspeed.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/flat-300x203.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Above: Our actor Chris Roberts scans fellow actors (objects) and considers how to respond to their thoughts as the performance unfolds.<\/p>\n<p>A snippet of the performance is here:<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/83421864\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Background<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Take Me I&#8217;m Yours is a third generation Internet of Things (IoT) artwork that evokes &#8216;actions&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1<sup>st<\/sup> Generation \u2013 Read Only<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The first generation of IoT technologies simply recall immaterial data that is associated with an artefact when it is scanned. Barcode scanners in supermarket checkouts, or near-field scanners used to check passports at airports, devices &#8216;read&#8217; tags and codes and recall data upon that item from a networked database.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2<sup>nd<\/sup> Generation \u2013 Read and Write<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Second generation IoT technologies allow for the writing back of data on to a database via a tag. Systems such as www.talesofthings.com or www.stickybits.com allow consumers and owners of artefacts to &#8216;write&#8217; information back to a tag allowing others to recall and further comment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3<sup>rd<\/sup> Generation \u2013 Read, Write and Act<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A third generation proposed by the artist and designers of Take Me I&#8217;m Yours involves not only the reading and writing of\/to tags, but the passage of instructions and actions through objects to facilitate their movement through space\/place. The tendency for the first two generations \u00a0of IoT is that objects are not shared in the actual world &#8211; only the immaterial data that they are associated with.<\/p>\n<p>Take Me I&#8217;m Yours is an iPhone app that allows users to read a traditional barcode that is associated with everyday consumer items. Upon scanning a code the user is prompted with an action to do something with the artefact: &#8220;Give me to your neighbour&#8221;, or &#8220;Take me to work with you&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Through actions that correspond with &#8216;real world&#8217; contexts &#8216;Take Me I&#8217;m Yours&#8217; encourages the movement of things through people, places and circumstances to provoke new histories and question the perceived function and value of artefacts. When the Cornflakes packet is browsed at home by a family and it says &#8220;Turn me inside out and design your own packet&#8221;, the artefact is given a voice that provokes a self-transformative action.<\/p>\n<p>Take Me I\u2019m Yours was launched at DIS2012 and also presented at Ubicomp2012 as a demonstration of the technology.<\/p>\n<p>You can watch humans being ordered around by things on these two YouTube clips:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.chrisspeed.net\/?p=929\">http:\/\/www.chrisspeed.net\/?p=929<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.chrisspeed.net\/?p=954\">http:\/\/www.chrisspeed.net\/?p=954<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Try it out\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Take Me I&#8217;m Your app (tmiy in the <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/gb\/app\/take-me-im-yours\/id531525184?mt=8\">app store<\/a>) allows you apply you own stories and scripts to your own objects with bar codes or try out other peoples.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s easy to make you&#8217;re own. Simply download the app and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>1. Click the menu button at the top\/left of the screen<\/p>\n<p>2. It is easier and often more effective to add lines for you play to particular objects, so the first thing I do is to pick your cast from your cupboard.<\/p>\n<p>3. Click View Products, Add as many cast members as you need by following the on screen instructions.<\/p>\n<p>4. Then back to the Menu<\/p>\n<p>5. Choose My Plays, then Create.<\/p>\n<p>6. Choose a title for your play, it will then appear in the list of Play I&#8217;ve Created<\/p>\n<p>7. Click your play<\/p>\n<p>8. Now you are able to start adding lines &#8211; hit Add to add the first line.<\/p>\n<p>9. Follow the on screen instructions and fill in the relevant fields. I often have the script loaded into another text application on my iPhone such as Evernote and then copy and paste relevant lines to the tmiy app. You can assign specific lines to particular products or you can choose to make it generic to any object.<\/p>\n<p>I have made two plays from highlights from the Frost \/ Nixon interview. The first requires a 500g box of Kelloggs Cornflakes as Frost, and a bag of 240 Tetley Tea bags.<\/p>\n<p>Plus I have made the same script that is unassigned to objects &#8211; you just have to pick your own characters and remember to swap them in the right order!<\/p>\n<p>Have fun.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sample of script:\u00a0 <strong>Beyond the Supermarket<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>written by Lytton Smith, Nijah Cunningham, J.R. Fenn, Jamie Popowich, Abby Rosebrock, and Angela Szczepaniak.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Marm<\/strong>.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Love me or hate me. Love me love me love me hate me hate me hate me. Love me hate me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gun<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ha. That\u2019s quite funny. Because people either love or hate Marmite. Yes. Okay, I get it, the joke\u2019s on me. Okay, okay. Who\u2019s responsible for this? Is it my Intro to Objectification students? You\u2019ve all failed the course. Laugh about that now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marm<\/strong>.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My father was German. He bottled brewer\u2019s yeast and ate it. But my name is French, you know, for earthenware pot.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gunderman is tickled that he gets responses from the objects. He keeps scanning.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Marm<\/strong>.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A man took me off the shelf 1 day and put me on toast.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marm<\/strong>.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Always toast. Toast again. No one drinks me anymore.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gun<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That is quite clever, though. <em>(To the audience)<\/em> Isn\u2019t that ingenious? It\u2019s a neat little demonstration, really, of the ways-<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marm<\/strong>.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Make a nice hot drink outta me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gun<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Anyone have a kettle handy? Some boiling water?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marm<\/strong>.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Give me to someone to eat, served on an icecube of white sugar.<\/p>\n<p><em>Gunderman looks mischievous; he is something of a bully. He gets a sugar cube out of the pack, uses his keys to spread marmite on the sugar, tries to get audience members to eat.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sugar<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Pretend I&#8217;m cocaine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gun<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I think that might get me fired. I\u2019d have to check with my Union rep.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sugar<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Recent credits include the role of cocaine in numerous student films.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sugar<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As set dressing in The Nutcracker I felt ashamed by the Mouse King\u2019s theft of sugarplums and marzipan from little ones at his rock bottom.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gun<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ooh, a celebrity. Well, at least we\u2019ve finally got an actor in the house. Don\u2019t tell me they\u2019ve gotten lost \u2013 or stuck in the revolving doors! You know, we\u2019ve got an English lecturer who once got stuck in the revolving doors? You can\u2019t push them, see; they tell you that, in big letters on them: Don\u2019t Touch! But he touched them, and they stopped revolving. And the more he pushed, the more they wouldn\u2019t move. Relatively speaking.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sugar<\/strong> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do you know how important I am to French Fry recipes?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gun<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well listen to her. Who knew sugar was so self-aggrandizing?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sugar<\/strong> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Go ahead, call me Sugar in the workplace.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gun<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sugar with a political bent. I like it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sugar<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Make tea for someone with me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gun<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nope, still no boiling water. Or actors.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sugar<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Put me on someone&#8217;s collar as if they&#8217;ve got terrible dandruff<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gun.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I might have been able to pull that one of if you hadn\u2019t just told everyone the plan out loud.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sugar<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When you see me, think of Baltimore, and call someone you know from there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gun<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A reference to <em>The Wire! <\/em>Very intertextual. How droll. Well, why not \u2013 we\u2019ve time to kill, haven\u2019t we<\/p>\n<p><em>Gunderman gets out his phone, makes a call.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Gun<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Emily? Hey, Emily-<\/p>\n<p>Well, yes, ah, okay, it is half-three in the morning in L.A.-<\/p>\n<p>No, no, nothing\u2019s wrong. It\u2019s just that this box of sugar told me to call someone from Baltimore.<\/p>\n<p>Yes \u2013 a box of sugar. It said to call someone from Baltimore.<\/p>\n<p>Well I know you\u2019re living in L.A. but you\u2019re from Baltimore, right? Hello? Emily?<\/p>\n<p><em>The call drops; we hear beeps. Gunderman eats a sugar cube, almost as if hoping no-one will notice.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sugar<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As you eat me out of the box allude to the claptrap about my causing cancer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gun<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nice. Now I feel really good.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beyond the Supermarket is a show that features supermarket goods as actors. Using the publicly available smart phone app Take Me I\u2019m Yours, a human actor interacts on stage with local products that are usually found in the cupboards and fridges of our kitchens. Beyond the Supermarket was first performed at the Expanded Narrative symposium [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisspeed.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisspeed.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisspeed.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisspeed.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisspeed.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1408"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/chrisspeed.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1411,"href":"https:\/\/chrisspeed.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions\/1411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisspeed.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisspeed.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisspeed.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}