Crowdsourcing within Interactive Art

Over at HiLobrow (one of my other blogs) today, our artist-in-residence Edrie (of Army of Toys) explains that Sleep No More, the American Repertory Theatre/Punchdrunk's Macbeth, a version set in an abandoned school building and described as "part installation art, part interactive, self-guided theater" — didn't sound interactive enough.

So while she was waiting on line to enter the show. Edrie handed out nearly 30 red feathers to other theatergoers, with the following instructions:

• You can keep this in your pocket as a souvenir for your time in line
• You can hold it out to other people you meet and see what happens
• You can use the feather to interact with the set without disturbing the integrity of the play

To one participant she gave a blue feather, with these instructions:

• Give this to a person with a red feather and quietly let them know they must not keep it but pass it on to another person with a red feather

Read on to find out what happened.