In may 2008 NetNiet.org and the Impakt foundation together launched "Gifted", a 5-day installation in which every festival visitor became part of a social experiment based on the book "down and out in the magic kingdom" by Cory Doctorow. By wearing a button with a number on it visitors could rate each other (between zero and five stars) on certain qualities. On wednesday, for instance, the question was whether the visitors were drug-free, thursday the question was
"spiritual?" and friday it was
"system-addict?". In each case the question was related to the
festival's daily theme. But the real heart of the project was what we did with this data: we
tried to make it tangible. For example, if you ordered a cup of tea at
the bar, you would get an extra cookie if you were highly rated, or no
cookie if you had a low rating.
We had chairs you could only sit on with a certain rating. We handed out different kinds of food and gifts depending on your rating. We also played little games. For example, people that were rated as not being drug-free were insinuated to hence be creative. They were asked to create little paintings, which we then took from them and gave as a reward to very drug-free people.
Above: In cooperation with Alchemyst and Barcinski&JeanJean a visualisation was created that showed where people were in the buildings and when people rated eachother, infusing it with comments on their possible relationship. A great video can be found here.
First we gave a button to all the attendants of the festival. Each had a unique number.
Thirdly we gave gifts, food, played games, and much more, depending on people's rating.
Second people voted eachother using a mobile application, mobile website, SMS, or terminal.
Above: On sunday people were rated on whether they were a "good dog" or not. Here good dogs get a nice savory treat while bad dogs get a, well, not so savory treat.
..and even on dogs.
Buttons were everywhere..
..on little kids..