Demonstrate

For the Demonstrate project (commissioned by the Whitney Museum) robotic cameras were set up over UC Berkeley's Sproul Plaza. The location was chosen as the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement as the project took place on the 40th Anniversary of the Free Speech Movement. The webcams (at the time state-of-the-art tech) could be remote controlled by online visitors. Over 4000 participants were visiting the website and a 1200 photo archive of images with comments was collected. 

"The camera and archive illustrate new imaging technology and human behavior in the public zones of both plaza and cyberspace."(1)

The project took place for 6 weeks in 2004, hence, the technology has to be seen as something exiting at the time. Also the commenting of images have to be considered taking place in an Internet context prior to wider use of social media.

Source 1) http://demonstrate.berkeley.edu/project.php