project title
The New York Snap Exchange
project description
The New York Snap Exchange is a round-robin, massively multiplayer street photography derby to be held for the duration of the Conflux. It's a game where everyone commissions art, everyone's an artist, and together we create an emergent visual index of the city. Here's how the game would work:
To play you need to have a camera, Web access, an e-mail address and a means of e-mailing the photographs you take during the game. You can play with a phonecam, an un-networked digital camera, or really any imaging apparatus you like as long as you can e-mail your images.
In the game, you do two basic things:
1) Issue photography challenges. These can be scavenger-hunt like challenges (Take a picture of the oldest church in Manhattan that still serves a congregation; Take a picture of a dog on the street wearing at least two fashion accessories), self-expression challenges (Take a picture that represents New York as a recently landed space alien would see it), team challenges (Coordinating with someone else, take
simultaneous pictures of the stations at opposite ends of a subway line), or anything you can think of that's not pornographic and doesn't require anyone to do anything illegal. Players issue challenges by e-mailing them, texting them or posting them on the NYSE website. Each challenge is logged and given a tracking number in the NYSE database.
2) Respond to photography challenges. Players learn of new challenges by going to the website, or possibly through a mass text messaging system like UPOC. They respond to challenges by e-mailing a photograph to the NYSE with a subject line containing the tracking number of the challenge and identifying fellow team members, if necessary.
TO STAY IN THE GAME, A PLAYER MUST ISSUE A CHALLENGE AND RESPOND TO A CHALLENGE EVERY DAY. THERE IS A MAXIMUM NUMBER OF CHALLENGES THAT A PLAYER CAN ISSUE IN THE COURSE OF THE GAME, AND A MAXIMUM NUMBER OF PHOTOS THE PLAYER CAN SUBMIT. CHALLENGES OR PHOTOS IN EXCESS OF THAT MAXIMUM WILL BE IGNORED.
At the end of the four-day game, points will be awarded for
1) The FIRST qualifying response to each challenge, as determined by the game operators (This favors the phonecam users.)
2) The BEST qualifying response to each challenge, as determined by the person who issued the challenge. (This favors the non-phonecam users.)
3) The best challenge issued during the game, as determined by the votes of all players.
After the game, each player will go to the website and select the best response to each of his or her challenges, without learning which players submitted which photos.*
At the end, someone will win, gloating will occur, and we will find an interesting way to exhibit the photos taken.
* Can players cheat? Yes, of course they can. You can register to play under multiple e-mail addresses, answer all your own challenges and pick your answers as the best. But really, why bother? There's not a
prize or anything.
name
Andrea Moed
location
Brooklyn, New York
profile
Andrea Moed is a writer, designer and producer developing media that fosters conversations about the natural and built environment. Drawing upon her experience as an exhibit designer, Web content developer and journalist, Andrea bases her work upon in-depth exploration of a site. Following a user-centered design process, she creates systems for sharing knowledge and opinion about public spaces among locals and visitors. Andreas recent work has focused on portable and wireless media. "Annotate Space" is a participatory, anytime walking tour that lets visitors see a Brooklyn neighborhood through the eyes of local artists, entrepreneurs and activists and respond with their own observations of the area. For the Prospect Park Audubon Center, Andrea is developing a series of audio trail guides in which park naturalists, designers, crews and volunteers share their perspectives on the park with visitors. Andrea holds a masters degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University and teaches at the Parsons School of Design. Her work has been featured in Discover magazine, BBC Online and the Wall Street Journal.
links
www.annotatespace.com
amoeda.typepad.com/commwireless
www.sitelanguage.com
contact
