A data visualisation installation commissioned for the official Wikipedia 10th Anniversary party held at the Louise Blouin Foundation in London on the 13th January 2011. The brief was to create a physical representation of the huge quantity of traffic that visits the site every day. Eighteen reclaimed thermal receipt printers were suspended in a grid four meters above the heads of the party guests. A custom script pulled live edits from Wikipedia and fed them to the printers, creating a physical "receipt" of the change. These receipts gently fell to the ground, building up as the event progressed until the floor was covered in information. This illustrated both the immense traffic that the site attracts and also the vast amount of time its users give to ensure its upkeep.
To offset the use of paper on the project, a tree was planted for each printer used. All the receipts that weren't taken by visitors were used for further projects.
Designed and built with Dean McNamee. Conceptualised with the help of Ben Bashford.
