Meta-Remediation as a Mechanism to Address Crowd Decision-Making in the Context of Media Art: The uTurn Case

uTurn is a digital art installation that allows interaction inside a cinema-like environment or a similar public space — an exhibition system in the context of an audience, retrieving an elected media from the choices made by the majority of the public. The software in its core manages the selection — a meta-remediation that elects a media block, in the form of short-story movies (Vidbits) to be watched by a crowd. The interaction model assumes the need to find a preference in the viewing room in order to identify and choose the next Vidbit. The system allows navigation through media blocks in environments like a cinema room, a summer festival, or a public event. It can be configured to support visual concepts, or to integrate a narrative system in which other types of structures in the story demand that the content follows a segmentation of media. uTurn was exhibited during the 5th Artech International Conference, in 2015. The article addresses the creative process towards the production of the digital artifact using Apple's Quartz Composer.