Byte Me! was a participatory theatre work created for high school audiences, designed to provoke discussion around issues of digital surveillance, online privacy, and consent. The performance used a blend of humour, unease, and technological spectacle to discuss what control we have over our devices—and what they might be revealing about us. Rather than presenting these ideas didactically, the show embedded them into the structure of the event itself: students arrived at what they thought was an ordinary school performance, only to find that their phones were ‘being scanned,’ their faces analysed, and their answers to seemingly harmless questions broadcast on the classroom wall.

The shows main character is Iris, developed using c++, using text to speech and represented by a talking eye. Iris is an robot actor, and performs scenes on command, trigged by the human performers to ensure good timing. Iris gathers data from students through surveys presented on their phones and grabbing images ‘automatically’) from a performers smartphone. Iris and the shows control system was run from a mac mini embedded in a TV stand on wheels. Iris ran on batteries so the character remained ‘alive’ as the unit was wheeled in and out of the classroom.

Iris needed to run freely while the background tools of the show worked independently like the local wifi, with a captive portal, fast iOS to OSX image sharing, face swapping, interactive maps and a webserver and c++ bridge. Upon arrival, students connected to a local Wi-Fi network, where thier screens became part of the show, both visually and for group interaction.

Byte me was made by Stichting wat we doen and directed by Floris van Delft