Have you herd?

Have you herd? is an interactive installation where visitors can have themselves 3D scanned. He can then intuitively create a “color DNA” linked to his 3D avatar. This avatar is placed in a virtual environment where its “color DNA” determines how it behaves in relation to other avatars and the environment. The visitor then has the opportunity to influence the crowd. In what capacity (and with what flaws) is your avatar born in this digital environment? And how does your avatar react to all the changes in this glitchy world?

The installation plays with the contradiction between having control and relinquishing control. And also between actively participating and passively watching. The participant makes an active decision to participate and be scanned “en public,” a passive process that you must undergo by turning yourself 360° and remaining as still as possible in the position. Next, you may create a color profile of yourself, actively, but must again passively watch your avatar move through the crowd. Which you can actively influence, but then you notice that the whole thing eventually turns out to be uncontrollable and you are left as a passive spectator.

“Have you herd?” was exhibited from April 9 to 18 at Het Forum, Groningen. 738 people were scanned. 

“Have you herd?” was created through a collaboration between Snow, Sphinx Games and Tom Dijkstra and was made financially possible through a grant from the Kunstraad Groningen (Arts Council Groningen).