Document:Q10968

Stéphane Degoutin, Marika Dermineur and Gwenola Wagon, november 2005.

What Are You? shuffles representations of lifestyles and social codes to generate an endless number of trends, attitudes and social behaviors. Each click launches a new association of images and sounds describing the trend.

In spite of huge investments, designers, marketing experts and trend hunters produce only two new trends a year. What Are You?, thanks to its database of more than 500 past, present and future trends, generates instantly 250.000 combinations, by randomely associating keywords. It is therefore in the position to produce the trends for the next 125,000 years (i.e. until 127005).

This confrontation draws new social labels, in a process that aims to wear out all possible or unlikely fashions or social stereotypes. Moreover, the juxtaposition of these stereotypes questions their respective influence and the boundaries in which they can be defined.