RIOFONEHACK Extends at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

The interactive digital artwork for one person at a time RioFoneHack has been extended for four weeks. The installation of Brazil's iconic public phone boxes, which audiences can pick up to hear to hear one of three fictional Brazilian artists, who interact with them via keypad and other sensors including pulse, motion and voice, first opened on the 10th June with the original closing date of 12th July.

RioFoneHack is from creators of the celebrated all-night performance Hotel Medea. Three public phones from Rio de Janeiro, as iconic in Brazil as red phone boxes are in London, have been hacked by ZU-UK and re-installed in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Each of the phones communicate with audiences before, during and after their visit to the Park via their mobiles using the cutting edge transmedia platform Conductrr.

The experience starts when you text 'rio' to the free phone number 07903 579 560, when you'll be invited to the Park by one of the three fictional artists, or for the curious passerby it begins when they pick up the phone. The first box is a five minute 'Brazilification', the second a meditation on the flow of River Lea's waters, and the third a research in memory and distance. The phones will be active 24/7 with additional live performance experiences at various times.

ZU-UK has created this unique interactive artwork with writers Holly Gramazio of former Hideandseek, Clare Qualmann, founding member of shunt Heather Uprichard and Edinburgh Forest Fringe's Andy Field, and digital artists Nacho Durán and Xurde Durán.

ZU-UK is an established, award-winning independent theatre and digital arts company based in East London and Rio de Janeiro and has just launched GAS station, a venue dedicated to the intersection between Arts and Games in Stratford. The company creates work designed to unite audiences in an increasingly globalised world through tailor-made experiences, rooted in rituals and rites. Since 2001 the company has collaborated across cultures and artistic disciplines, and is the creator of Humble Market, an immersive exhibition between UK and Brazil (2012-2014), and Hotel Medea, an immersive overnight experience (2009-2012), which received an horary mention from the world's most honoured media arts competition, Prix Ars Electronica, and a Herald Angel (2011), was nominated for a Total Theatre Award, and was a finalist for the Samuel Beckett Trust Award (2010) and The Space Prize (2014).

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