WHISP-[25]

WHISPERS is an immersive experience where virtual actors, inspired from real-world public figures, engage in unscripted debates that feel as immediate and unpredictable as online discourse. These AI-driven personas embody and amplify the rhetoric of digital influencers, escalating ideological clashes to their most extreme forms and in the process exposing the viewers to the mechanics of dogmatic tribalism.

WHISPERS explores how belief behaves when engineered for mass consumption. In the age of infinite scrolling and hot takes, persuasion isn’t about truth but it’s about performance. Digital media exploit social engineering to weaponize emotional triggers, shaping public perception under the guise of ideological conviction. In this emerging economy of rage, outrage is not a byproduct, it is the product. Emotional volatility is monetized, gamified, and circulated at scale. Algorithms don’t just optimize engagement, they reward those who turn rage into ritual. Social influencers, acting as opinion leaders, strategically frame arguments to turn discourse into a battlefield. Here, persuasion is not about truth but about engineering division, triggering tribal instincts, and reinforcing pre-existing biases.

The instaltion shatters the myth that algorithms alone drive polarization by exposing the key roles played by designers, marketers, and media figures in manufacturing public consent. This unholy alliance has transformed public discourse into a spectacle, weaponizing emotional reactions and turning digital space into an ideological battleground. The project investigates how social media personas, the so-called opinion leaders, operate in this space. It exposes them in an interactive-unfiltered debate format that captures the tactics and “rules of engagement" that drive this conflict. The result is a visceral experience meant to highlight the rigid logic of dogmatic beliefs through exaggerated caricatures.

Experts

Rosa M. Gil-Iranzo, Associate Professor Universitat de Lleida

Santiago Latorre LIA, Sound Laboratory Curator Etopia Center for Art and Technology

Simon Colton Professor of Computational Creativity, AI and Games Queen Mary University of London

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Curator

Blanca Perez Ferrer, EU project coordinator and curator Etopia Center for Art and Technology

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This project has been developed and is presented in the context of the European Digital Deal.