Jonas Lund, Fair Warning, 2016, online commission
7 April – 12 June 2016
We live in a world where “in some sense, almost everything we see can be construed in multiple ways. As a result, we are constantly choosing between duck and rabbit.
Van Bavel in “How Your Brain Decides Without You”
Coinciding with the exhibition Electronic Superhighway (2016-1966), Swedish artist Jonas Lund (b. 1984) presents a new online work titled Fair Warning (2016).
Jointly commissioned by the Whitechapel Gallery and Phillips, Fair Warning (2016) encourages viewers to participate by responding to a series of over 300 questions which range from colour preferences, politics and emotions to the latest trends in the art world. Playing with our expectations of traditional online questionnaires or personality tests, it examines the value and use of data collection when attempting to represent user tastes and asks whether an objective way of measuring the value of art exists.
Hosted on both the Whitechapel Gallery and Phillips’ websites, Fair Warning both embraces and attempts to demystify website analytics and testing tools, as the clicks and cursors of all users can be seen when engaging with the work.
To interact with the work, click on one or several answers for each question. Answer as few or as many questions as you like. If you choose not to answer, the next question will load automatically. The whole test can last up to an hour, and then repeats itself.
The results of how website users have been responding to the series of questions are on display at the Whitechapel Gallery and Phillips until 12 June 2016.