Search Queries - Portrait of America 2006 Installation

There is no activity that reveals more about a culture and its topical interests than its internet searches. Search queries reveal a staggering detail about a society’s intimate interests, phobias, medical conditions, cultural obsessions, shopping intentions, sexual predilections, religious, literary and media preferences. I have constructed this artwork, using approximately one million actual online searches from AOL in 2006 that scroll along the LED ticker screen. This artwork both celebrates the astonishing breadth of America's searches and mourns some of the printed publications casualties that the search engines have caused, examples of which are on the shelves beneath the ticker. Background to the queries: in August, 2006, AOL Research released three months of search queries for research purposes. It quickly realized that personally identifiable information was present in some of the keywords, which led to journalists uncovering actual people whose search privacy was breached. AOL admitted its mistake and removed the data file but not before its was distributed on the Internet. AOL’s CTO resigned as a result of this corporate blunder.

Installation:Digital on Paper

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:65 W x 20 H x 8 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.