Alexander Brandt

Risk your Life (2007, Interactive video installation)

Would you lay your future into the hands of a total stranger? No? And yet people around the world do so. They go to so-called experts of all professions and entrust important decisions with them, even if they have met them only minutes ago. The predictions these experts impose upon us, subconsciously have great persuasive power and will in one way or another change the course of our life. Why would anyone want to do that?
Risk-Your-Life is an automated fortune-telling device consisting of six displays. The audience can solicit a personalized prediction by sending a short message to the indicated number.
Immediately their number will be shown all across the displays. Just as each phone number is unique, the following prediction will be a unique combination out of 1.2 billion possibilities. From the left screen to the right screen each pair of digits will flip over and show a professional for social affairs, a business consultant, a fortune-teller, a doctor and finally a weather forecaster announcing to the audience what this number stands for. All together the result is some hilarious non-sense... and still, most senders, anxiously listening to this verdict, and will inadvertently be affected...