Money Plus is a software-based art work which looks for “money” on the Internet by querying the Google search engine in real time. Users can add another term to their search for money, for example, “money and the meaning of life.”

These searches appear instantaneously in the reimagined “web space” of the piece. This piece recontextualizes a simple web search as a dynamic, typographic space. Money Plus deals with spatialization and interpretation of information from the network. By looking at the Internet through a narrow filter, the piece creates often surprising narrative threads. The piece culls the far-reaching, sometimes emotionally-charged, and often irreverent references to themes of money, wealth, and power by the Internet collective.

I am interested in the mapping of information spaces. If Borges’ fable of the one-to-one sized map of an imaginary kingdom has become true in the age of the Internet, the role of the map as an all-encompassing tool for representing the entirety of a region needs to change. We need new kinds of maps to make sense of the data overload, maps which narrativize and personalize the journey.

Money Plus represents one technique for guiding a viewer along a subjective path through the digital information space. I am also interested in the performative and social aspects of a work. When Money Plus is presented as an installation piece, it requires viewers to submit their queries to the system. Seen as a group effort, the query terms could be considered to represent the collective psyche of the visitors. The interaction could be thought of as a collaborative way-finding experiment.