In a world of 8 billion feeds, information is power… but ignorance is strength. So what happens when authority meets idolatry? AUTHORITARIAN IDOL is an audiovisual mashup of pop, politics, and performance art — using the remixed words and images of presidential contenders to explore the collision of civic ritual and media spectacle that is the American electoral system.

Hosted by Maxx Klaxon, AUTHORITARIAN IDOL features interactive video interviews with holographic avatars of political candidates, set to an electropop soundtrack. The result: a dark satire of an infotainment-driven democratic process.

This multimedia performance was first staged in 2008, in the run-up to the presidential election. Since then, a new edition has been presented every four years, at venues in New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and elsewhere. Starting in 2016, the show has been produced in 3D. The 2020 edition was streamed online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2024 version of AUTHORITARIAN IDOL was presented at the HOPE XX conference in Queens, NY; at 3D-Con in Wichita, KS; and at Portal: Rockaway in Far Rockaway, NY.