Kyra van Ineveld

Department: Man and Communication
Website: www.kyravanineveld.nl

The Wiki Truth

Long ago, the encyclopaedia on the bookshelf was the ultimate source of information. Each entry held an unquestionable truth. Now there is Wikipedia, where the truth is composed from thousands of contributions. "This online 'wisdom of the crowd' is turning the truth into something transient," Van Ineveld explains. She asked Wikipedians for the pages that had been changed most often. Printed on a black-and-white printer, but bound to resemble the classic encyclopaedia, the top five Wikipedia entries make up a series of bizarrely bulky reference works — on Obama, the Catholic church, the war in Gaza, global warming, and ‘race and intelligence’. As you browse The Wiki Truth you can follow the shifts and changes in the explanations. It seems that nothing is a fickle as the truth.