Irene Cheng and Brett Snyder's Museum of the Phantom City uses personal telecommunications technologies to transform New York City into an interactive museum of architecture and urbanism. Conceived as an "open source" museum, the project engages the public by encouraging users to act as both tourists and curators of the city.

Cheng and Snyder propose to rethink our current system of guidebooks and maps and their one-way flow of information, by redeploying multimedia cell phones and PDAs as instruments for revealing the hidden stories behind the city's buildings and streets . Museum of the Phantom City will house a multi-media archive of descriptions and experiences, audio and video recordings, and images that offer access to otherwise invisible narratives of the city. While traveling throughout the city, for example, pedestrians may be able to download or upload images of unrealized or utopian schemes for the sites they encounter, allowing them to see the juxtaposition of present and future. Other itineraries may map the city according to user-generated descriptions of less determinate qualities, like mood or sounds, enabling a user to navigate the city by spaces in which particular moods are predominant.

During their fellowship term, Cheng and Snyder will research and develop the program for the Museum of the Phantom City to consist of a series of curated itineraries or tours - such as the City of Repressed Memories, the City of Global Influences, and the City of Arbitrary Values - and they will design and implement one of these itineraries in New York City.