Unmake project: creating virtual presence in an anonymous space.

Halfdan Hauch Jensen & Maja Fagerberg are associated to the Fablab and are teachers at Humtek. Besides their duties at Roskilde University they also run the interactive art group Unmake.

This year, at Roskilde festival 2015, they made a new installation challenging the boundaries between social life in the physical world and the virtual. They did it by inviting participants to broadcast their online social data.

A voice from two megaphones blasts out a list of names stating that they are present at the festival. Details about their lives are summarized. everything from where they are from, their education to what kinds of movies and books they like. The speakers are mounted right above the crowd passing through the different concerts at the different stages.

The festival environment represents an alternative universe where people with different demographics gather for a week. In this space they are stripped from their everyday identities. This is consequence of leaving behind the icons and artifacts that normally signifies who we are. There are no bookshelves presenting our taste in literature etc.

This can either be considered a relief or frightening for each individual as they wander within the grey masses of people. The piece highlights this property by giving the participants the chance to broadcast their personal information from their Facebook profile.