BBC World News America – Remote New York

Local broadcast time: 2015-04-16 T 21:55:00
remote x is part of an international project sponsored by a german project. tom: early in the morning, a cemetery in new york. 50 citizens gather sporting headphones. it is a tightly orchestrated two hour tour in which a prerecorded voice give directions through the headphones. >> my name is heather. i will try to be your friend. >> she announces i am a computer. i do not have a body. that is why it starts in greenwood cemetery in brooklyn. there is a lot of discussion of, what does it mean to have a body? >> eadead humans leave a body behind. tom: there is much that is not morbid. heather encourages dancing. she gets the group to race. 5:54 PMon a train, participants are prompted to act in unison to pretend to tie their shoelaces at once. other passengers to not know what is going on. there is something slightly subversive. new york trying to get people to reflect on collective behavior. and explore the nature of urban life. >> is a city like a body with elements or is it just a random group of people trying to get out of each other's way? htom: will t -- this live art experience has its followers. but is it more than a gimmick? it encourages a fatalistic introspection. heather: imagine your own dead body. tom: too many participants what the tour did do is make them think about how a group behaved. heather asking us to indulge in negative thoughts towards other participants. heather: whose telephone number would you like to have and who would you prefer never to see again? tom: the tour is testing our relationship to technology and asking should be always obey the signals from our digital devices? >> the technology tells us where we need to be, tell us how to get there. it tells us, gives us access to the resources we need throughout our day. is the technology in control or are we? tom: let go of your past. the german art collective that sponsors remote new york is spreading its wings, operating in 20 cities. next month they will appear in moscow.