The Smartphone Orchestra

The Smartphone Orchestra started out as a musical idea, to create a magical tapestry of sound by synchronizing an audience’s personal cell phones. After running many successful iterations of that experience, a larger idea emerged: using smartphones to bring people together in the here and now, i.e. the Smartphone Orchestra as a tool for social design.

On June 12th, join DSL and guest host Rachel Eve Ginsberg for an interactive evening with the Smartphone Orchestra team, Creative Director, Steye Hallema, Head of Production Shea Elmore, and Technical Director Eric Magnée. You’ll have the chance to learn all about their projects, design approach, and experience what it’s like to be a part of The Smartphone Orchestra yourself – with their newest experience EMOJIII just a few days after its world premiere at Tribeca Immersive.

About EMOJIII
Emoji is the language spoken by most people in the world. (Everyone with a smartphone at least.) But…the “words” of this language are made up by only a few (very big!) companies. Do emojis help us express
ourselves more freely and precisely, or do they funnel us into a bland and indistinguishable goo? That’s what the group will find out with EMOJIII.

Smartphone Orchestra Team
Creative Director: Steye Hallema
As the son of a magician, Steye too tries to create magic and wonder. He loves to use immersive technologies for their ability to make the audience part of the magic. Steye is an experienced VR director and creatively leads the critically acclaimed Smartphone Orchestra project: An orchestra created by the phones of audience members themselves with which Steye and his team tell stories with the audience instead of to them. Steye has won several awards and nominations with his innovative storytelling projects and showcased his work world-wide on A-list festivals such as Tribeca, SXSW, IDFA Doclab and Bifan.

At this moment Steye also works as creative director at the 4DR Studios - a full volumetric video Capture studio in the Netherlands and previously worked as Creative Director for the Disney backed XR start up Jaunt XR and as creative lead for the MediaLab of Dutch broadcaster The VPRO.

Head of Production: Shea Elmore
Shea is a producer and designer with a background in immersive media and interactive performance. He built a career in New York as an international producer with Blue Man Group. When he moved to Amsterdam, he pivoted to user-centered performances and technology. While producing one of Europe’s largest VR festivals (The VRDays) he became involved in the community of artists and designers developing the new wave of interactive experiences. Among other projects, he produces, presents, and designs for The Smartphone Orchestra.

Technical Director: Eric Magnée
Next to years of working as a composer/sound-artist in theater and dance, Eric is known for programming (interactive)music systems and building new instruments with which he finds new ways of performing and perceiving music. In 2015 he co- invented the Smartphone Orchestra together with Creative-director Steye Hallema. Over the years they have created many interactive performances for clients like KPN, Randstad, SXSW, VR-Days, The Sonar festival, CPH:DOX, IDFA Doclab, The Antwerp Symphonic Orchestra and the Storioni Trio.

Creative Strategist and DSL Member: Rachel Eve Ginsberg
Rachel Eve Ginsberg is a creative strategist and experience designer exploring the relationship between information systems, interaction design and sensemaking. Recently the Founding Director of the Interaction Lab at Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, Rachel built an interdisciplinary, embedded research and development program focused on audience experience. Now back in independent consultancy through her practice Branding for Experience, Rachel focuses on organizational transformation, strategic planning, audience development, and experiential strategy with museums and other institutional clients.