Ice Crowd – a crowd experience
As part of Layered Realities, a showcase for 5G networking technology held in Bristol in March 2018, Tim Kindberg who was Editorial Lead for the 5G Fellowships, gave a 5G Fellowship talk on Experiences for Crowds. 5G’s increased bandwidth and low latency compared to previous mobile networking technologies makes it suitable for delivering new types of digitally mediated experiences to dense groups of people.
He concluded with a demonstration of Nth Screen technology from matter II media, in the form of Ice Crowd, a synchronised smartphone audio experience about climate change. Approximately 40 people took part. As the video below shows, he synchronised the audiences mobile phones, which emitted music, voices and sounds distributed among them.
“I’m looking at my phone all the time, and it’s a singular experience, it’s about me and my device, whereas this work is about your device and how that connects you to other people in a real way, in a live way.”
Audience member
Photos by Jon Aitken