Deriva is a participative media performance which takes place on public space and can be followed live, through a web browser, anywhere in the world. A smartphone, attached to a bunch of helium filled balloons, broadcasts out of control images and sound of its drifting flight. Equipped with a GPS, a microphone and a camera this smartphone streams its erratic viewpoint through the mobile network. The audience can follow its live broadcast as well as its trace on a map. The stream of real-time generated sound and images can be followed from any Internet connected computer or smartphone. The resulting video is then reversed and can be seen (from end to beginning) at deriva.tv
Deriva (Catalan word for “drifting”). The action begins with a social situation in which a group of people gather in a public space and spend time together talking, laughing and filling up a bunch of party balloons with helium. After a while, I take a smartphone, turn on its GPS and activate an ordinary live audio/video streaming application. When we have about a hundred helium filled balloons, I attach the smartphone to them and let it go, up in the sky, out of my control.
After we lose visual contact with them, we walk into a room, we sit in front of a computer, open a web browser and follow the live streaming of the drifting smartphone as well as its trace on a map. After we lose this virtual contact (probably due to restrictions of my prepaid data sim card), I manipulate the resulting video file simply by inverting the frame order, and here is the result: http://deriva.tv