Heckle

Enables large groups of passers-by to engage in ongoing spontaneous conversations.

Heckle at the National Theatre
Heckle used in the foyer of the National Theatre

Heckle augments conversations by letting people catch up with what is being talked about visually – providing a user-contributed flow of relevant texts, tweets images, videos, websites overlaid on a live video feed of the event.

Developed with The People Speak to augment their public conversational performances, Heckle lets participants use a web app to contribute to a live visual summary of the conversation so far, so that new people can get involved at any time in the course of a discussion.

Heckle also provides a post-event visual timeline of the conversation, so over the last 7 years, The People Speak have been building a searchable, participant-annotated video archive of spontaneous conversations.

A post-event visual summary
A post-event visual summary
Schematic of a Heckle set-up
Schematic of a Heckle set-up

Credits & Links