NOISIEL, France
An American mashup artist let passers-by put words in giant zombies' mouths last week.
The show, called Txt of the Living Dead, projected 15-foot-wide, black-and-white stills from George A. Romero's classic 1968 horror flick Night of the Living Dead onto buildings. Text messages from random people on the street then filled comics-style speech balloons that were added to the images in what New York artist Paul Notzold called an "SMS-enabled interactive street performance."
"It's all uncensored, and that's the beauty of it," said Notzold, a 33-year-old art director who also teaches about cell phones at Parsons The New School for Design. "Where else can you write something so spontaneous and anonymous and see it projected so large?"
Notzold's work is one of several public art projects, like Smoke Signals and the Helloworld Project, that encourage viewers to become participants.
The interactive art mashes the humor of Roy Lichtenstein's caption art with the primal mixed media of cave paintings. It draws people together, makes them laugh and makes them think.
Notzold's road kit is deceptively simple: a Mac, a projector (and something to stand it on), a camera and a generator. Helpers distribute a cell phone number on pieces of paper Notzold always gets a number for the country he is in, making it easy for locals to participate.
