KARAOKE TV

Karaoke TV works like regular karaoke, but instead of singing pop songs, participants act out short scenes from movies and television shows using their smartphones as teleprompters.

People want to act ridiculous. They just need to be given the right context. KaraokeTV provides this context and allows people to create spontaneous performances by following and interpreting instructions.

Networked applications, written in node.js, display a video component on one screen, and text synched to that video on mobile devices. Participants recite lines and perform physical actions, interacting with each other and characters and effects on screen.

A catalog of episodes, containing quotable scenes from movies and television shows, original stories starring famous characters, and totally original content, is maintained online, and users can contribute to it.

The goal of this project is to create a form of screen-based storytelling that is active rather than passive and to develop interactions between people, technology, and media that are intuitive and provocative.

The end result is a platform that is adaptable to a number of different paradigms. It could be used educationally, as an aid in learning foreign languages, as a performance device, as a party game in living rooms, or in bars or venues where you might typically find karaoke. In any context, it facilitates uninhibited performance and play, mediated by mobile technologies.