Cyberstein

In 1992 Lynda Williams and Chris Seguine produced an interactive nonlinear movie, Cyberstein. Lynda wrote, directed and edited the film, and Chris was the technical director and produced the animations and interactive technology. The film was shot at the San Francisco Art Institute in the famous Studio 39 and debuted at the Climate Theater in San Francisco for nine shows over three weekends in June, 1992. The film was recorded in 3-D binaural  audio and the audience was equipped with head sets and voting devices.  We believe this is the first interactive film ever produced. 

Bergen Williams, known for playing Big Alice on the soap General Hospital, stars in the lead role. Lynda plays her idiot-savant assistant Igor. Other parts are played by Wendy Brummer, Sharon Donahue, Matt Kochs, Joel Kohn and many other friends played extras.  

In 1992, San Francisco was the epicenter of virtual reality, cyberspace and the internet.  There were only a few hundred websites at the time and the term "surfing the internet" was coined and popularized in 1992. Both Lynda and Chris were immersed in the cyber VR world evolving in realtime in SF. Chris was a student at SFAI and Lynda worked as the assistant manager of the New Genre department when they met and started collaborating together. The first scenes showing VR pioneer Jaron Lanier and musician Todd Rundgren where shot by Chris and Lynda at the CyberArts International conference in Los Angelas in 1992.  The world wide web was so new that few people were aware of it outside of the SF Bay Area. The use of the word "icon" in the film sounds outdated today because the word "avatar" wasnʻt in use yet. There "internet" wasnʻt in popular use. It would take decades for the modern lexicon for the internet to evolve into what it is today. 

The installation Jaron Lanier is shown on, PedXing, was another interactive installation Lynda and Chris created. A user stands on platform "curb" wearing blacked out glasses and a headset so that canʻt see but only hear sound recorded in binaural audio on a street corner in NYC. When the user feels it is safe to cross, they step on a smart street that is triggered to play different outcomes such as safely crossing the street or getting hit by a car. Some users would fall to the ground when triggering the crash it seems so real!

Chris worked with new media artists such as Michael Naimark at SFAI whereas Lynda was producing original performance art mutli media musicals and videos on science and technology themes in such as works as Unilang, Historechtomy, The Go Go Show and The Birth of Venus.