Yes or No?

2017

Yes or No? is a survey designed to capture everything but participants’ answers, focusing on what we can learn by context alone. Participants are asked to say aloud “yes” or “no” in response to one of four sets of 27 questions that range from “Do you have ten fingers?” to “Do you believe in god?” We archive the results and analyze them, studying pauses, tone, and patterns without recording the binary responses themselves.

The work is a commentary on the hidden meanings and depth behind things perceived as binary. Troubled by the political pressure of taking one of two sides, my collaborator Gabriela Barreto Lemos and I used quantum observation techniques to derive a system that studies everything but the direct pairing of binary answers to questions it solicits.

The project is in early stages, and we ask that you contribute and take the survey here.