Project Detail

[OP]erator

Installation view.
The visitor is prompted to share a thought or opinion from the centre device.
In an idle mode, the 100 screens display a synchronised news-ticker of trending local and global headlines.
Each post is passed through an LLM to generate slight variations according to each device’s persona, as well as translating the text into audio, creating a spatial chorus of bots.

Synopsis

Our online environment is increasingly shaped by automation. Politically charged bots are deployed at national scale, influencers and brands inflate metrics to game the algorithm, and AI-generated content spreads instantly and indistinguishably, distorting our social discourse.

[OP]erator is an interactive sculpture that stages a functioning bot farm, exposing the hidden infrastructure that manipulates this system. While one might imagine these bots as purely digital, they often still rely on physical hardware controlled by a human conductor. Sophisticated bot farm services operate hundreds or thousands of physical phones in synchronised automation designed to circumvent social platforms' increasingly strict verification systems.

In this installation, 100 phones are choreographed through a single master phone, mischievously unlocked for any visitor to orchestrate. The visitor is prompted to share a thought or opinion, which will be automatically amplified and posted by the 100 phones’ X accounts.

“OP” refers to the terms “original poster” and "overpowered". For a brief moment, visitors will embody both, becoming digitally omnipotent and creating ripples of disruption in our algorithmic reality.

Returning a degree of control to the user, the piece prompts reflection on how visibility, influence, and belief are constructed and manipulated online.

Details

Year
2026
Type of project
XR / Immersive
Director
Playfool (Daniel Coppen, Saki Maruyama)
Producer
Playfool (Daniel Coppen, Saki Maruyama)

Production Status

Production Company

hello@studioplayfool.com

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