Stories from an Invisible Town

Hoipolloi were making Stories from an Invisible Town, a project about the childhood of Hugh Hughes, who is a stage persona, the alter ego of the company's artistic director Shôn Dale-Jones. I built the online half: invisibletownstories.co.uk, a map of a childhood that filled up as memories were added to it. The site greeted visitors in Hugh's voice: "I'm Hugh Hughes and I'm making a map of my childhood. As I remember things I'm putting the memories here."

It was built in small pieces over months rather than delivered in one go. One of those pieces was Hugh Hughes FM, a stream-only version made after audience feedback. I wrote about the approach at the time: "With Hoi Polloi I extended the idea over a longer period yet, and we've collaborated on Stories from an Invisible Town using an agile, iterative approach that's also allowed us to do tiny hacks."

The online space was one half of a commission. Hoipolloi toured a live show of the same name, and that was the company's own work, not mine.