Interactive display to feature video "performers" that follow you around

We have to admit that we can count the number of "interactive performances" we've attended on one hand, and we can count the number of interactive performances that we weren't dragged to by a S.O. on no hands. And yet, if we happen to be in Bath, England between the 9th and 27th of February, we're definitely gonna hit up the HOSTS exhibition at the Bath Abbey Church. Bristol-based artist Martin Rieser sought out the Abbey for his immersive display, in which visitors are tracked as they move around the space, due to the Jacob's Ladder motif on the front of the building. Videotaped characters on huge screens "follow" visitors as they roam about and develop "personal relationships" through prompted-feedback. Adding to the realism of the experience are wireless surround sound headphones, which bathe visitors in "a 3D audio landscape of footsteps, acapella tonal voices and breathing sounds." Sounds super-creepycool to us. Future iterations of the project, with help from Nottingham's Mixed Reality Lab (we knew a guy who got busted running one of those) and Bath University, will attempt to expand the virtual landscape through the use of GPS- and 3G-enabled PDAs that let your "friend" from the Abbey annoy you with whimsical aphorisms all over town.

[Via networked_performance]