Materials

• Wood
• Custom PCB board
• Arduino uno
• Bluetooth Speakers
• LCD Screens

During this time campaign ads were in full swing. This particular presidential election exhibited particularly high tensions between not just the candidates, but their supporters as well. This project aimed at embodying the same tensions being experienced all over the United States at that time. I wanted to portray the same distraction which was being pumped throughout our news venues in a more ludicrous manner to draw attention to the absurdity of it all.

The aim of this project was to immerse participants in an environment that was deliberately set up to confuse and overwhelm them. In order to do this I copied comments to Instagram posts from President Donald Trumps account and Senator Bernie Sanders account. The comments were then read on repeat by a computerized agent. Upon entering the room the participants walked into darkness and were guided only by sound and the light coming the LCD displays. Displayed on the screens were obscure news stories from the time. They included Chelsea Mannings release date, which had happened only weeks prior, and the number of civilians killed in Iraq since the inception of the war in the Middle East.

Future versions of this project would be aimed at increasing the level of immersion.