Neoliberalism(s)

A software-based questionnaire and mapping system that explores how expatriates in the UAE experience and compare different forms of neoliberalism.

Neoliberalism(s) was first exhibited at the 11th Sharjah Biennial (13 March – 13 May 2013). The work seeks to explore the diverse perceptions of the fierce nature of neoliberalism held by expatriates living in the UAE.

“Almost everybody who lives in Dubai also lives somewhere else,” writes Rem Koolhaas in Al Manakh, a study of the Gulf region. Expatriates in the UAE experience a split reality—moving between different geographies, climates, languages, and social worlds in their home and host cities. Yet regardless of these differences, many share exposure to a common set of global economic policies and market-driven logic. In this sense, the UAE becomes a rare meeting point where multiple neoliberalisms converge and can be comparatively experienced.

Neoliberalism(s) uses a custom software-questionnaire-mapping system to capture subjective encounters with neoliberalism—both in participants’ countries of origin and in the UAE. It adopts the familiar format of an online survey but subverts it through a satirical interface, available both online and onsite via touchscreen.

The survey propagated virally through social networks (e.g. Facebook, Twitter), following a snowball sampling method and targeting users based on their social media profiles. As participants responded—either online or in the exhibition space—their answers were stored in a central database and visualized in real time as a network map. The questions were designed to elicit both factual and imaginative responses, blurring the line between lived experience and perception.

The result is a growing, crowdsourced map of comparative neoliberal imaginaries—revealing both overlap and divergence in how economic ideologies are lived and internalized across borders.

Installation components:

• Print: A subjective network map of countries and neoliberal concepts generated by the artist, who took the survey on behalf of all countries represented.

• Touch Screen: A live questionnaire and collective map, continuously updated in real time with responses gathered both online and onsite.