06 Feb 2/11/20 Steye Hallema

Posted at 12:11h in Past Lectures by

In conversation with:

Steye Hallema

Tuesday | February 11, 2020 | 12:00 – 1:30 PM

MIT Open Documentary Lab | E15-318

MIT Campus, Wiesner Building, 20 Ames Street, 3rd Floor, Cambridge MA 02142

Telling Stories with The Smartphone Orchestra

Developed by creative director Steye Hallema and WildVreemd, The Smartphone Orchestra is an orchestra in which anywhere from ten to thousands of smartphones are synchronised to potentially form the biggest orchestra in the world. An orchestra in which every participant’s smartphone plays a unique part. The technology opens up numerous possibilities to tell stories or share experiences with mass audiences. In his presentation, he will conduct a Smartphone Orchestra performance with the audience and discuss with the group how to use the Smartphone Orchestra as a tool to create group experiences — to tell stories with the audience instead of to them.

Steye Hallema is a seasoned digital storyteller/director. His masterpiece VR music video What do we care4 was nominated for an UK music award in 2015 and was a worldwide hit amongst virtual reality early adopters. This project landed him a job as creative director for Jaunt VR, a Disney-backed VR startup in Silicon Valley. The cinematic VR experience “Ashes to Ashes” which Steye co-directed won Gold at the Dutch VR Awards and was nominated for the Dutch Oscars. “Weltatem”, a virtual reality opera game which Steye directed, won two Dutch Game Awards. At this moment Steye works as Creative Director for his own company WildVreemd and as artistic leader for the Smartphone Orchestra.