David Allan Rueter

Dimensions variable
2006
Metal shelf, acrylic sheet, television monitor, computers, custom software, leaked AOL search data, web images

Pictures of Search is an interactive multimedia installation created by David Rueter and Jeff Huston. The installation, a freestanding kiosk with a television monitor, presents annotated slideshows generated from private search data accidentally released by AOL in 2006. Each slideshow tells the story an individual AOL user (identified only by a number) through the text of their searches and images downloaded from websites they visited. Viewers interactively engage with the slideshow through a laptop computer on a nearby table. This laptop presents a web page with a custom Google-style search interface, which allows viewers to search and select AOL users for inclusion in the slideshow.