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Performr gives you the opportunity to hook up with an artist for a specially made performance. Photograph: Performr
Performr gives you the opportunity to hook up with an artist for a specially made performance. Photograph: Performr

How we made Performr, the art cruising app

This article is more than 9 years old
Grindr and Tinder have transformed dating, so could an app that allows artists and audiences to hook up change the way we interact with art?

Ever found that someone else's pics don't give you the full picture? Disappointed that it's all chat and no hookup? In a world of infinite profiles and stress-free blocking, what if "the one" is just outside your app's radius?

Pink Fringe is a producer of queer and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) cultural events based in Brighton, and we have a lot of personal experience of the thrills and disappointments of dating apps. Last year we received funding from Arts Council England to carry out a series of projects exploring the concept of "connectivity" in relation to queer and LGBT culture.

We were interested in the subject because of the history of covert ways that queer and LGBT people have connected with each other. From hanky code – a traditional form of signalling to others what your sexual preferences and interests are – to polari, a form of language commonly associated with gay men, we wanted to trace the legacy in contemporary culture.

Grindr and the many other apps of "hookup culture" at first seem like new ways of encouraging connection. However, they also allow individuals to be more discriminating and less social – you only have to see the recent demise of traditional real-world gay venues to see evidence of this.

Working with artist Brian Lobel, we were inspired to make a new digital experience for audiences, one that played with the exciting, sexy, traumatising and often complicated digital playground that is the dating app. It seemed to be a perfect backdrop to showcase some great new art that probes some of the related issues and also investigates new ways in which artists can connect with audiences.

Working with Brighton-based app builder Surface Impression, which specialises in collaborations with cultural and heritage organisations, we developed Performr. The app gives you the opportunity to "hook up" with an artist to experience a specially made performance digitally or, play your cards right, in the flesh.

We built the app to emulate the structure and functionality of other dating apps on the market to make the experience as close to the truth as possible. It employs geocaching, text and photo chat and the all-important "block" function for unwanted advances. It's playful, but we also want to develop something that offers a slick experience and reflects the way that we as users seamlessly move between apps, so a conversation on Performr could then move to FaceTime, Snapchat or a link to a Spotify playlist.

We're only in the pilot phase of the project at the moment, but we have commissioned ideas from some of the UK's most exciting performers and artists, including Scottee and Stacy Makishi. Some performances will be playful, others more sexual; some may result in an in-person meet-up between artist and audience, while others remain exclusively as an exchange over the phone. For example, an audience exchange with an artist could result in a video chat to America or an invite to a church for a mysterious sensual performance.

The diversity of the app's commissions echoes the wide range of experiences with dating app culture, from idly wasting time flicking between profiles to an active effort in finding true love. We're launching the app at the Brighton fringe and we're really excited to see how the audience responds; we also hope to commission more artists to make pieces in the future.

We think Performr could work well in other art festival contexts where you have a localised audience. As well as being a platform where people can experience specially made art, it acts as a forum where they can chat to each other about things they are seeing and doing – who knows what new connections might blossom between fans and followers of the arts?

One of the challenges behind Performr was tendering, which was a new process for us. Despite the interest in social and digital media within contemporary theatre, the worlds of software development and performance are fundamentally quite different. However, we definitely managed to find common ground in the desire to think about interacting with audiences in a way that leaves a long-lasting impression, and hopefully we've achieved this in blending the digital and live experience.

As theatre and performance producers, we need to be making work that reflects the way that young people are embracing technology, and the effect this is having on all aspects of our lives. Otherwise it risks becoming an artform increasingly detached from contemporary culture.

David Sheppeard is producer at Pink Fringe – follow the company on Twitter @pinkfringeuk

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