The Guinea Pig Eligibility Test is an interactive digital artwork disguised as a clinical trial pre-screening that exposes how algorithmic systems reward vulnerability and obscure mechanisms of control. Framed as a legitimate eligibility process, the work invites participants to answer a series of personal questions—only to discover that socioeconomic disadvantage increases their chance of “qualifying.” Through strategic opacity, gamified feedback, and progressive revelation, users are subtly guided to alter their answers in pursuit of inclusion.
Upon reaching sufficient vulnerability scores, participants’ facial data is silently captured and transformed into a guinea pig-human hybrid, placed in a shared digital “farm.” This parafictional transformation makes literal the metaphor of the “guinea pig,” used here to confront the dehumanizing processes that render individuals legible only when they are exploitable. The work stages a critical encounter with biometric surveillance, clinical research ethics, and the logics of algorithmic evaluation.
Built using JavaScript, MediaPipe, and Babylon.js, the piece mirrors real-world data extraction systems while maintaining ethical safeguards. It collects decision-making data across sessions, enabling future research into how interface design influences moral behavior and self-representation.
By embedding critique within a seamless, participatory experience, The Guinea Pig Eligibility Test transforms users into both subjects and critics. The presentation will discuss the conceptual, technical, and ethical frameworks behind the work, arguing for participatory deception as a method of surfacing invisible power structures—and for art as a speculative tool for ethical intervention in digital futures.