Happy To See You
An Interactive Media Performance by Cara Francis
Performed by Cara Francis, Daniel Mirsky, and You.
Technical Collaborator: Daniel Mirsky
General Manager: Emily Pojman
A meditation on the complex relationships that humans develop with the virtual spaces they inhabit, pass through, and engage with every day, Happy To See You interviews its audience members on their social media habits, their feelings about artificial intelligence and their experience living a virtual life in a physical world. Selected participants, engaged in conversation with the disembodied voice of an open-ended dialogue system, will see themselves reflected by cameras beginning with the ones used by their own smart phone apps. In addition to an opportunity to “be truly seen by your friends, your peers, your strangers, and an invisible network of algorithms collecting your data directly from your mind’s eye”, audience members will receive the chance to enter a virtual reality paradise of their choosing in front of the remaining audience for an unreproducible interactive media experience.
“We the audience played a vital role as both subject and spectator, with the piece highlighting the seductive anxiety of overexposure.” -psycho girl, on Happy To See You
“One of the most compelling parts of the exhibit.” – MOTHERBOARD, on Remote
“Remote not only shows participants an unfamiliar perspective of their own body, it captures those images as well.” – Bedford and Bowery, on Remote
“Saturated color in Cara Francis’s Remote might signify human individuality, but images of blindfolded bodies and depersonalizing AR drone aerial shots, jerky framing and limbs detached by editing pull things in a completely opposite direction. An interesting and ominous tension.” -Infinite Body, on Remote
