Presently Untitled: Data Mapping of 2016 US Presidential Election Twitter Activity, Phase III

This project, with its multiple phases, transforms the 2016 United States Presidential Election Twitter data into a large-scale installation (see Fig. 1) to probe the question of how artificial intelligence via the ways of social media assumes form and transforms the shaping of the future of a nation. By mapping election data into flickering lights, clicking sounds, and the exchange of fluid between IV bags, the installation recounts Twitter election-related activities from February 2016 through the election date of November 8, 2016. By identifying major Twitter influencers in this period, uncovering propagation patterns in the AI-enabled Twitter landscape, and differentiating human tweets from robotic (Twitter bot) tweets, the installation exposes the inner mechanisms of a world where true human activity and artificially intelligent automation mutually influence each other and propagate inseparably as a combined force. The installation allows the examination of machine world infiltration that shifted the generative entropic propagation of campaign messaging on social media, and provides a physical space for contemplating the significant challenges social media pose in our understanding of the social fabric and the radical transformation of the ways in which we now relate to each other.