An Art-Game Installation by Michael Gary Dean, Cadie Desbiens-Desmeules and Nick Letizia
In a world where algorithms dictate reality, DON’T BE EVIL immerses players in the absurdity of modern digital life. An art-game installation that unravels the mechanics of targeted advertising, AI-generated content, and the eerie autonomy of bot-driven interactions, the work twists the digital labyrinth into an uncanny, suffocating maze. It is a fractured mirror of the internet, a place where engagement is currency, identity is fragmented, and every click deepens the loop.
Drawing from the Dead Internet Theory and Habsburg AI, DON’T BE EVIL unfolds as a series of vignettes: a dystopian metro ride where terms and conditions are the price of passage, a corporate labyrinth that recycles job candidates like cached data, a scrolling purgatory of curated identities. Players navigate spaces where digital ghosts whisper algorithmic predictions, where NPCs dissolve into self-replicating AI fragments, where choice itself is an illusion.
The installation is not just played, it is performed. As players move through its environments, their interactions feed the system, subtly shaping the experience of those who follow. Glitches accumulate. Ads metastasize. The internet eats itself.
In DON’T BE EVIL, players experience a flood of AI-generated content, including deepfake influencers, distorted advertisements, and manipulated news. These media elements, produced using AI video models, create an environment where AI-generated material blends seamlessly with real-world internet culture, offering a glimpse into a near future where spatial computing fully integrates digital content into physical spaces, making AI-generated media an unavoidable part of everyday life.
The AI-generated videos in DON’T BE EVIL act as a mirror, reflecting the overwhelming digital landscape of today but projected onto the physical world. With the rise of immersive technology like Augmented Reality, the boundaries between the digital and real world will dissolve, forcing individuals to navigate an environment saturated with algorithm-driven content. Every surface could become a screen, every action a transaction, and every step a data point feeding into an endless cycle of targeted engagement.
This project envisions a reality where simple tasks like catching the metro might require deciphering CAPTCHAs to prove one’s humanity, signing digital waivers to enter public spaces, or enduring mandatory ad streams unless a fee is paid to bypass them. In a landscape where the physical and digital merge seamlessly, DON’T BE EVIL offers a critical lens on the future, questioning how much agency we will truly have when every interaction is mediated by an invisible, profit-driven algorithm.
DON’T BE EVIL is an extended reality art-game installation by Michael Gary Dean, Cadie Desbiens-Desmeules and Nick Letizia. 2025 work-in-progress