Inspired by the Soulja Boy "Crank That" phenomenon that sweep YouTube, my hope is to document and study the evolution of the original dance and the evolution process developed through many participants contributing to the video conversation. Dance Dance Evolution installation allows users to participate in the dance conversation by viewing the previously recorded dance video and then recording their own version to the dance for the next person. Think the game "Telephone" but with user-generated dance videos.

Background
I spent a great deal of time, mapping out the trends of Soulja Boy's initial video post in April 2007 that led to close to 600 video responses after he released an instructional video to the infamous "Crank That" song. I am interested in documenting an evolution of an YouTube dance as it become quite different from the original that started the conversation.

Audience
My target audience is the people who have seen one or more videos of Soulja Boy's "Crank That" and interested in participating in a video conversation using the Dance Dance Evolution installation.

User Scenario
The typical scenario of Dance Dance Evolution is the user(s) first will view a video left by a previous user(s). Based on that video they have just scene will create a response video that would replace the video they first saw. Although the user will not have access to other videos, they will be able to view the videos online to see the whole conversation and the evolution of the Soulja Boy dance.

Implementation
This installation consists of two screens (ideally) and camera running on a Mac using Max/Jitter. About 4 x 4 feet is needed to allow room for the user to perform the dance.

Conclusion
This is part installation and part experiment and my hypothesis is through unique influences by participant adding to the dance, the dance will eventually gain it's own characteristics and eventually become unrecognizable to the original dance.