EquityBot World Tour

Art projects are like birthing little kids. You have grand aspirations but never know how they’re going to turn out. And no matter, what, you love them.

It’s been a busy year for EquityBot. I didn’t expect at all last year that my stock-trading algorithm Twitterbot would resonate with curators, thinkers and  general audience so well. I’ve been very pleased with how well this “child” of mine has been doing.

This year, from August-December, it has been exhibited in 5 different venues, in 4 countries. They include MemFest 2015 (Bilbao), ISEA 2015, (Vancouver), MoneyLab 2, Economies of Dissent (Amsterdam) and Bay Area Digitalists (San Francisco).

Of course, it helps the narrative that EquityBot is doing incredibly well, with a return rate (as of December 4th) of 19.5%. I don’t have the exact figures, but the S&P for this time period, according to my calculations, is the neighborhood of -1.3%.

The challenge with this networked art piece is how to display it. I settled on making a short video, with the assistance of a close friend, Mark Woloschuk. This does a great job of explaining how the project works.

And, accompanying it is a visual display of vinyl stickers, printed on the vinyl sticker machine at the Creative Workshops at Autodesk Pier 9, where I once had a residency and now work (part-time).