The Emily & Todd Voth Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute is pleased to present Cellphone Rollercoaster, a performative sculptural installation by Noelle Choy and William Lanzillo that invites visitors to participate by sending their cellphones on a wild ride to experience this miniature amusement park within the gallery. 

Opening with a public reception on Friday, June 26, 2026, from 6:00–8:00 pm, with a live DJ set by Blush Beat, Cellphone Rollercoaster operates as a playful counter-spectacle to large-scale events and explores the roles of spectatorship, participation, and performance. 

Noelle Choy and William Lanzillo invite participants to place their phones on a custom-made rollercoaster that is part sculpture, model, and amusement park. With the video camera recording, the phone documents its own journey as the rollercoaster moves through a theme-park setting, populated with a comical mash up of sculptural props and familiar Kansas City landmarks. This experience creates fractured viewership—between the phone’s perspective, the live installation, and the video playback. This layering highlights how cellphones mediate daily experience, using absurdity to reimagine their autonomy, and shifting the first-person narrative by casting the device’s owner into the role of spectator.

Originally conceived and presented at the INVERSE Performance Art Festival, hosted by The Momentary in Bentonville, AR, in 2025, the Kansas City iteration of Cellphone Rollercoaster is organized by the Emily & Todd Voth Artspace with special support from April Pugh, Cooper Wray Siegel, Muriel Hansen, and Jackson Daughety.