Saturday, January 19, 2008

NY Enemy/Ally Project Installation

The installation of the New York Enemy/Ally Project was completed yesterday afternoon at Schroeder Romero as part of the group show, Caucus. Twenty graphite portraits of the people (and things) represent the range of voting from the equivocal to the absolute. The subjects were selected from the results based on their total number of votes and rank in the certainty index.

The show is up through February 16th and includes works by co-curator Michael Waugh, Eric Heist, Laura Parnes, Jennifer Dalton, Charles Browing, Laurie Hogan, Lou Laurita, Walter Martin and Paloma Munoz, Heidi Schlatter, and David Wojnarowicz.







8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't get it. Why didn't they just vote with Range Voting. Give the pieces a 0-10 score and pick the one with the best average.

William said...

I wanted the vote to force the issue, enemy or ally and the ballot asked each participant to make a definite choice. The range came from the caucus not each individual standing around wondering exactly what level of asshole Gagosian is. That's a survey, not a vote.

Anonymous said...

But enemy/ally is less informative than "0-10". It part of the reason that the founders of HotOrNot.com wanted to have a scoring system instead of just "hot" or "not" as a binary choice.

When you say that a score is a "survey, not a vote", I assume you are unaware of Bayesian regret figures from Princeton math Ph.D. Warren D. Smith, which show Range Voting (scoring the candidates) to be the best voting method, especially when you account for strategic behavior.

That's the thesis of the William Poundstone book Gaming the Vote, out on Feb. 5th.

William said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
William said...

Totally unaware of Bayesian regret figures, Warren Smith, and William Poundstone. Last time I went to vote the ballot had some names and you voted for the ones you wanted.

This is an art project where the voting took place at a two hour opening where people usually give an artwork 15 seconds. I was asking for Enemy or Ally on any number of votes up to 10. It was intentionally vague whether to vote for 10 enemies or 10 allies. Some people even wrote "I hope you all kill yourselves." How does that figure into Poundstone's book?

This wasn't a scientific vote and since it's not about using or promoting the most accurate voting system, I'm thrilled I got any tangible results. Normally, I just make lists of my own enemies and allies, which I tend to find pretty accurate and amusing.

So, dude, if I were to conduct a serious, survey like what'd you say ,hotornot.com, I'd be sure to ask you.

It should sink in at some point, that this is called the enemy/ally project and the binary choice is a reflection of our fucked up culture. Sort of like the Democrat/Republic paradigm we have to endure, seemingly endlessly at this early point in 2008.

Be sure to send that book to someone in charge of the upcoming election. I'd like to use range voting in the primaries for every candidate, regardless of party affiliation. It'd be just like hotornot.com

Anonymous said...

Last time I went to vote the had some names and you voted for the ones you wanted.

Actually, most people vote for the one they like better out of the two front-runners, not for the one they actually wanted. This is called plurality voting, and it's one of the worst voting methods ever devised.

This is an art project where the voting took place at a two hour opening where people usually give an artwork 15 seconds. I was asking for Enemy or Ally on any number of votes up to 10. It was intentionally vague whether to vote for 10 enemies or 10 allies. Some people even wrote "I hope you all kill yourselves." How does that figure into Poundstone's book?

It sounds like you used Approval Voting, which is actually the simplest form of Range Voting. That's covered in Poundstone's book.

Normally, I just make lists of my own enemies and allies, which I tend to find pretty accurate and amusing.

What do you mean by "accurate"? Accuracy with a voting method is measured via Bayesian regret.

It should sink in at some point, that this is called the enemy/ally project and the binary choice is a reflection of our fucked up culture. Sort of like the democrat/republic paradigm we have to live with for a year.

That two-party duopoly is a result of our plurality voting method. If we used Range Voting, we wouldn't have just two parties.

Be sure to send that book to someone in charge of the upcoming election. I'd like to use range voting in the primaries for every candidate, regardless of party affiliation. It'd be just like hotornot.com

It was reviewed by at least one Congressman, as well as a Nobel laureate and other experts in the field of social choice. It's hard to make politicians care much about things like this, since the current system is what got them elected.

William said...

Since I am primarily a joker and general all-around asshole and you have what appears to be sincerely useful information for solving the problems I am just suggesting via the art world, I'm not disagreeing with any of your information.

In fact, it's really important and I would love to see it implemented considering you seem about as happy with the current system, and the stellar results as I am. If you'd like to post an editorial on the site, please email to me at enemiesalliesproject@gamil.com and I will post it immediately along with any links or other informative reading you suggest to people disgusted with the system.

Oh, when I mentioned that my lists were accurate, I was suggesting that I am just right in my opinion. I'm not actually referring to voting or social choice. I often feel like we don't really have much of choice about our social class.

Also, please visit www.williampowhida.com and poke around my website. I'm not terribly serious.

Anonymous said...

The hex is working.
Zach Feuer will not be renewing his 5 year lease that ends this year. Justin Liberman has left the gallery and Tamy Ben-Tor is moving to Salon 94 after her show ends. Dana Shutz will clear out once her book is published.
Zach will move to private consultanting which will be run form the Beaver Street home office.
Good work William, there is justice in the art world.