KarmaGo (prototype)

Experimental livestream performance and interactive web application, 2025–ongoing

KarmaGo began as a prototype for an app through which an audience could earn virtual karma points. Two performers streamed live video and audio from separate locations to a remotely situated audience. Viewers collectively voted for one of the performers, who would then carry out an act of kindness in public and earn karma on their behalf.

This initial system became the starting point for an ongoing research project that brings the mechanics of a video game into real public space. Live performers become playable characters, while the audience collectively decides how they move, what they do, and how they interact with people on the street. Unlike a conventional video game, however, the environment is not scripted. Passers-by, interruptions, refusals, misunderstandings, and unexpected encounters continuously reshape the experience.

By allowing decisions made through a screen to produce consequences in the physical world, KarmaGo examines the relationship between collective control and responsibility. The audience is not only watching a performance but actively directing situations involving real people whose reactions cannot be predicted or reset.

The project is currently in active development. I am exploring different voting systems, game mechanics, narratives, branching storylines, and decision-making structures that could determine the performers’ actions. The broader aim is to develop an experimental livestream format in which a game unfolds through the uncertainty and social dynamics of everyday life.