Honorary Mention Interactive Art+
Kyle McDonald (US)
Exhausting a Crowd was inspired by Georges Perec’s novel, An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris (Tentative d’epuisement d’un Lieu parisien), and automates the task of completely describing the events of 12 hours in a busy public space like Piccadilly Circus in London or in Amsterdam XX. The events occurring during this period are open to anyone to comment upon, annotate, or tag, resulting in a collaborative interpretation of the narrative. Some commentaries provide narration for complex multi-character stories, others catalogue every single selfie taken.
The work is a beautiful record of the energy present in shared space, as well as a disturbing look into the potential for control in a dystopian environment of constant mass surveillance.
