This performance piece ran live on Twitter on from 9:30 to 9:45 pm on October 31, 2010 under the (now empty) hashtag #outsideurdoor. This hashtag pulled together performances from three Twitter characters: a zombie called @MrShamble, a werewolf called @vvolfmaan, and a vampire named @Nozfera2, all of whom seemed to be preparing to enter the Inspace Gallery, or reader’s house, and #attackthehumaninside. Mez describes this performance as follows:
exhibited via a Live Trans-Reality Performance Event held simutaneously via Twitter streams, The Web, and geophysically at the Inspace Gallery as part of Inspace’s “No One Can Hear You Scream”/The Third International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling: “…the knitting 2gether of the #OutsideUrDoor synthetic/real-time action created through the @MrShamble, @Nozfera2 and @vvolfmaan characters via multiple projections/soundtrack/linked c[l]ues with geophysical audience participation [and those exclusively in the twittersphere] was marvellous. the [micro in more than 1 sense] narrative gradually unfolding in front of a live audience based in Scotland…just…mixed reality ftw:)…this type of net-native work[ing] really extends + [weirdly] collapses so many conventions/distinctions.”While the aura of live performance has faded, we can reconstruct some of the event by reading each character’s tweets— manageable enough with the links above— and making an educated guess about how their conversation is intercut over time. This intercutting was done at the time by the hashtag, but Twitter doesn’t keep hashtag data for long, which is challenging for future documentation. What jumps out from behind these tweets: the characters are fleshed out through their distinct voices— @MrShamble is a bit of a whiner, for instance— and by the most basic of hypertextual brush-strokes, the link. Each character has at least two links: one in their description and one that they tweet, providing information, imagery, or connections to such absurd pieces of contemporary culture that they require only to be connected to an art context to critique them. Was Breeze in Australia during the event? What else happened during those 15 minutes, or at the end of the performance? What other external elements contributed to the moment? I could interview Mez or the other performers at the exhibition, but then the work might be reduced to a “you had to be there.” I think the imperfect remains, along with some imaginative archeology, are strong enough to evoke the moment.