Left or Right?, Interactive installation, 2025
https://leftorright.carrd.co/#


The interactive installation Left or Right? by Lila Rui Lan and Natascha Christina Petersen invites visitors to experience the act of decision-making. Through helmets built and programmed by the two artists, participants are questioned about themselves and their lives, whilst their answers are recorded and layered into a visual representation of choices, which will finally be revealed in a short film showcasing unity rather than solitude, displayed on the front page of this website. 

The installation takes the form of a meditation space with two zones, marked by four towering columns and a fifth column at the centre of zone one. Participants enter the space to begin their journey in zone one, and as they wear the presented helmets, the embedded algorithm is activated, triggering YES/NO questions and beginning their journey. Participants respond by pressing buttons on the side of their helmets and walk either to the right or left based on their answers, an action that is recorded for later representation in the short film.

While venturing through the space, the participants are suddenly met with a moment of suspense as they reach the threshold of the first zone. In this suspended moment, they must decide: stay within the system, or step beyond it. Those who choose to step out are now offered an opportunity to choose between glimpses of worlds, facing themselves and their choices in life. Now, the participants are faced with a new series of inquiries, probing the motives and implications of their departure from the known.

This work simulates lives propelled by choices. Each one opens or closes paths. It examines the tension between individual agency and asks what happens when we are faced with our choices. Do we remain within the comfort of the known, or leap into the unknown? And most importantly: what does it mean to make a choice? Can any choice ever truly be our own?