BeDemocracy

BeDemocracy was a participatory exhibition exploring democracy and the influence of social media on democratic engagement. Visitors actively shaped the content of the exhibition througout  its 6-month run, creating a dynamic experience fully guided by visitor participation, in person and remotely.

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A central element of the exhibition was for visitors to experience the sense of "authority" that lies in expressing opinions on social media. They did this by giving their input via responding to topical questions on four thematic walls, digitally on the exhibition's website - or on Twitter. At the center of the exhibition was a giant sphere displaying these statements. With the help of Kinect motion sensing technology, visitors could "like" the expressions displayed on the sphere by giving a thumbs up, pushing the most liked ones to the forefront. In this way, visitors both created and continuously "edited" the content of the exhibition. Participation was overwhelming, with both a high visitor turnout physically, and over a million Tweets generated related to the exhibition's content.

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Developed to mark the bicentennial of Norway's constitution, BeDemocracy was a temporary exhibition active from May 14^th to November 23^rd, 2014. It was developed by Expology in cooperation with the Nobel Peace Center.

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Photos: © Expology