Reply STOP to stop

Mass political texts can’t be sent by automations. For every political text you receive, someone personally hits send. These texts mimic those sent between friends; a false relationship greets me when I read “Hi Molly, it’s Kamala.” Kamala asks what she could say to get me to donate. I reply back in all caps, but she doesn’t respond.

In 2024, a campaign sent out text messages to third-party registered voters about a libertarian candidate, Chase Oliver, to try to pull votes away from Donald Trump in the general election. Ghosted is an archive of the responses received from that campaign — examining language in politics and the power dynamics of being heard. 

In election seasons, we find ourselves trapped in an unending one-way conversation. When given the opportunity to respond, sometimes we take it. We yell into the void.

This installation at the ICA included 10 cell phones, charging cables, and 4,770 SMS texts which were sent over the course of 28 days. Viewers could interact and text back.