Move-me (2006)

Dreamed up in 2004 over a plate of pasta in their Highland home in Scotland, move-me was an iteration of Fildes and McPherson’s ‘hyperchoreography’ project, in which they used emerging networked moving image technologies to enable the audience/viewer to participate in the creation of the work. The move-me project took two years to finance and develop. It launched at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London on 16 February 2006.

Drawing on the concept of the self-service photo booth, move-me was a private performance space in a public site. Participants entered and through interacting with an ATM -style interface, could chose to work with one of eight acclaimed dance-makers of the time — Rafael Bonachela, Nigel Charnock, Jonzi D, Shobana Jeyasingh, New Art Club, Stephen Petronio, Kirstie Simson, and Deborah Hay — following their instructions to rehearse, perform, and record an original video dance inside the booth. Once recorded, the individual videos were uploaded - by hand, as recorded data requirements outstripped the capabilities of dial-up.

Uploaded to move-me.com, the videos formed a growing online archive where participants could find their dances, browse others’ creations, save favourites, and vote for clips they enjoyed. Between 2006 and 2008, the site attracted more than 150,000 visitors and over 350,000 video views.

By April 2008, the itself booth had toured 35 venues across the UK and the Netherlands, including Sadler's Wells in London, before continuing to Australia and New Zealand later that year. More than 10,000 people experienced the booth, generating over 2,000 video dances for the website.

The move-me.com website was also featured at FILE 2006 in São Paulo. The project received media coverage from BBC Newsnight Review, BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, BBC Radio Scotland, Canal+, Yahoo! TV, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and ABC Classic FM.