The Project> This Project is a collaborative exploration of Spontaneous Freestyles conducted within a Cypher set in Cyberspace. The participants were instructed to watch the preceeding freestyle on their computer screen, and once finished to jump in and conduct their own freestyle starting with the preceeding persons last word and elaborating on a similar topic. The freestyles are all spontaneous off the top of the dome, and were all done in one take, and were all limited to one minute. These were the only rules. Beyond that the artist had complete control over such things as beat selection, background settings, etc.... Each artist set up a digital video camera plugged into their home computers and conducted a video conference of a different kind. A collaborative cypher in cyberspace open to anyone anywhere to collaborate with spontaneous freestyles off the dome.
 
 

The Background> The idea for this project came from the geographic seperation that has been created over the years within hip-hop culture within the United States. News Media perpetuated stories of East and West Coast "beef" along with the deaths of West coast artist Tupac Shakur As well as East Coast artist Biggie Smalls has created a seperation within hip-hop culture and has given a bad name to Hip-Hop music in general and has created a negative stereotype. Recently with the emergence of both the South and North Hip-Hop scenes, as well as Canada, Japan, France, Germany etc.... I came up with the idea Of trying to unite these people who have a passion for Hip-Hop, and to create a vehicle for collaboration of these different styles and geographic settings based around the "Freestyle" and spontaneous collaboration.
 
 

The Technology> The Technology used is the same type that is used by various Corporations to conduct Video conferences and Business meetings in the event that every member could not be in the same space at the same time. Also recently it has been introduced into the realm of telephone calls and chatrooms, as well as experimental musical collaborations. All you need to participate is a Digital video camera, a computer, and the Global Cypher shareware.
 
 

The Links>

The Videoconference Research Center

Best Practices in Collaborative Technology

The Cypher> another project I did using Freestyles in Cyberspace