American Sentiment X by Jeff Phillips is on view for the 2025 Terrain Biennial. American X is a data-driven public projection that reveals the emotional pulse of the nation in real time.

Drawing from millions of live posts on X (formerly Twitter), the system scrapes hashtags and keyword patterns to generate a constantly evolving word cloud—a dynamic portrait of American sentiment in the moment.

The project explores how public emotion is shaped, surfaced, and distorted by algorithms. It asks: What are we feeling? Why do some express it so loudly? And how does witnessing that visibility shape what we feel ourselves?

Displayed in public space, American Sentiment X becomes both ambient and confrontational—a mirror of the national psyche, built from our raw, unfiltered contributions to the feed.

Terrain Biennial is a grassroots public art festival that brings artists and neighbors together to put public art on the front lawns, porches, windows, and rooftops of neighborhoods across the world.

Jeff Phillips is an artist living and working in Chicago. He is a past resident artist for Artists in Public Schools, documenting the lives of students in the Chicago public school system. He serves as Board President for Filter Photo, and since 2009 has helped produce the multi-day Filter Photo Festival. He is the creator of the vernacular photography exhibition, Lost and Found: The Search for Harry and Edna, on permanent display in the St. Louis airport

He has lectured at Columbia College Chicago, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and other leading arts education institutions. He regularly presents workshops about making zines and books. He’s presented to audiences at Pecha Kucha, SPE, ASMP, SXSW, and other conferences and festivals.  

He holds an M.A. in Photography and Integrated Media and a B.A. in Applied Technology from DePaul University in Chicago.