In fall 2010, Marc Horowitz surrendered control over his daily decisions to thousands of voters through his online, performative social experiment, The Advice of Strangers. For one month, he made himself the guinea pig in a crowd-sourced, decision-making experiment: By regularly polling his online audience via a specially designed website, he will drew upon the wisdom of the masses in order to make choices.

The questions he asked spanned various aspects of his life, from the mundane to the intimate, including his inconsistent career, his tumultuous relationship with his family, personal grooming and fashion tips, and spontaneous daily dilemmas. The Advice of Strangers constituted a collaboration between artist and audience, which consisted of anyone who visited the website and casted a vote. In this way, the project explored what it is like to live one’s life by the whim of an anonymous community, as well as the ways in which online social networks are changing how we navigate the world. The results and the repercussions were recorded through edited video content on www.theadviceofstrangers.com.

Marc Horowitz

The Advice of Strangers

Online

2011