Elegy: GTA USA gun homicides

Elegy: GTA USA Gun Violence. Elegy was a live streaming, 24/7, self-playing automated gaming mod for Grand Theft Auto V to remake the gameplay to act as a data visualization system. Gun homicide data was scraped continuously from the Gun Violence Archive online, gun homicide totals are revised daily on this website, these figures were actively fed into the project. The game would reset itself daily, starting at 0 each midnight, each day the new total body count since January 1st was reenacted in its totality over the next 24 hours through the game play and so on. The project went live on July 4th, 2018 when there had been 7,293 documented gun homicides in the United States – by the end of 2018 this number grew to 14,730, on January 1st, 2019 the homicide count for the year began anew at 0. The project operated for one year from July 4th, 2018 to July 4th, 2019. Elegy was live screened in its totality on Twitch.tv, the hyper popular live streaming gaming platform. The work was accompanied by a looping soundtrack, of the first radio recording of "God Bless America" as sung by Kate Smith in 1938. The work is a pilot project to explore data visualization using computer gaming. "Elegy" ceased live streaming after one year of 24/7 online operation on July 4th, 2019. Elegy was developed in collaboration with Albert Elwin of the Biome Collective, and included early project consultation with James Wood.