(small) creative initiatives that challenge (big) traditional ideas
• ( egoistic ) • activistic • architectural • audible • cinematic • conceptual • graphic • strategic • surface • urban • wireless
Commons is a civic game and iPhone app which aims to help new Yorkers “compete to do good” while helping to improve New York City.
Equipped with an iPhone + the Commons app, players are challenged to identify problems in urban space and suggest ways to improve them. Players can vote for each other's ideas and the most popular one wins the game.
The game launched on June 19th and the first version was designed for play in Lower Manhattan.
Commons is a private initiative and the data gathered from the gameplay will be shared with nyc.gov’s 311 team in the hope that it can help them fix the right problems, faster.
Related crowdsourcing initiatives: Crowdculture + Idea Map + Give a minute and change your city
Since March 2011, the artist Tim Devin has been putting broadsides (small posters) up around the Boston area.
The posters come in different kind of flavors: Street Surveys, Mappy Facts or Poems by Paul Johns.
Street Surveys ask questions that people can answer by removing a slip of paper. Mappy Facts show maps of data about the Boston area - income statistics, FBI crime stats, etc. Poems by Paul Johns feature poems by Paul Johns.
If you'd like to help put posters up in Boston you can mail Tim and he will send you a print-ready file.
And of course, if you don't live in Boston or in the US, you can easily create and adapt the surveys to your own city and language.
Related: Tim Devin's I left this here for you to read
• www.timdevin.com/broadsides.html
If you are in Denmark, you can follow the life of a homeless man called Allan via an SMS service.
Allan lives on the streets of Copenhagen and subscribers to the service will receive three text messages a day, for two consecutive days.
One of Allan's messages reads: "I just woke up. Slept on a bench behind Flintholm Metro Station with my dog Little Piv".
The service is called 'SMS from the streets' and the idea is to offer a bit of insight into the life of a homeless person.
The fee is 20 DKK (4 Euro) and all proceeds go to a magazine for homeless people (Hus Forbi). The service is provided by SMSpress, which is a small publishing house specialized in providing text based stories via SMS.
To subscribe, text "SP HUSFORBI" to 1277.
• The story on Hus Forbi (in Danish)
The artist Candy Chang once again takes social-media to the street with the project "Before I Die".
Candy turned the side of an abandoned house in New Orleans into a giant chalkboard stenciled with the phrase, “Before I die I want to _____.”
Residents are encouraged to remember what is important to them and complete the sentence using chalk.
Related: I Wish This Was...
The creative folks over at POKE in London just held their second annual Hack Day, dedicated to R&D.
For a day, the company split up in competing teams working on the brief: "Make our neighbourhood better: Find something you would like to improve in the area and create a solution that can live online".
Teams had 24 hours + £100 to devise and build the most inventive and enterprising idea.
And the winner is.......The 100 Project.
The 100 Project is an idea for a fund, which supports artistic talent in east London. Local artists are commissioned to create a piece, which is then auctioned on eBay. The aim is to generate enough profit to put 100 local kids through a term at The Prince's Drawing School.
A website is already in place, and the first great piece of art is on auction.
Yes, it's amazing what can be done in a day.
• www.the100project.co.uk • www.pokelondon.com
Sometimes it takes a small sticker to make a big wish.
The simple fill-in-the-blank stickers are created by artist/designer Candy Chang to help citizens in New Orleans express and share their thoughts on their community.
Stickers are free and can be found in corner stores, cafes, bookstores, bars, hair salons, and other places around New Orleans.
It is not the first time that Candy Chang - a favorite of this site - made a tool designed to empower people and communities. Check for instance the remarkable Post It Note Project for Neighbours, Tenants' Rights Flash Cards and Community Chalkboards.
• www.candychang.com/i-wish-this-was
IDEO has created an online community called OpenIDEO where people can help create solutions to some of the world's toughest challenges.
Challenges are curated by IDEO and community-members can submit their own ideas as well as help bring other ideas forward by building on them and voting for them.
OpenIDEO’s first challenge - posted by Jamie Oliver - asks the question, "How can we raise kids' awareness of the benefits of fresh food so they can make better choices?". Another challenge simply asks users to help design the new OpenIDEO logo.
According to Tim Brown, the goal of OpenIDEO is to find out whether it is possible to achieve better results by having small internal teams collaborate with the crowd. All challenges posted on OpenIDEO will be for social good but in time, IDEO may use the platform as part of their client work for closed challenges, but those won’t appear on the OpenIDEO site.
Related: Fiat Mio: The World's First Crowdsourced Car + Pepsi Refresh Project
Grey goes green in central Rotterdam where the Parking Garage Westblaak is being transformed from a block of concrete to a green oasis.
The new parking garage named Green Park will be covered with various plants and the structure is set to become the largest green facade project in Europe. Aside from looking pretty, the vegetation will help offset Co2 emissions, improve biodiversity and absorb rain water.
The project's main investor is Christian Stadil, a Danish buddhist, businessman and owner of the sportswear brand Hummel. The facade is designed by local architects, Kühne & Co.
Socalled vegitecture (vegetated architecture) is becoming increasingly popular, not only because of its environmental qualities, but also because it can turn ordinary buildings into urban landmarks. See for instance the BHV Homme fashion storein Paris, Arquitectonica's Ballet Valet Parking Garage in Miami and Edouard François' iconic Flower Tower in Paris.
TORTURE CLASSICS is a collection of music that has been used as instruments of torture by US government interrogators.
It includes Top 40 hits, Metal, Hard Rock, Country and Western, TV theme-songs and commercial jingles, as well as original “mash-ups” created by CIA agents, prison administrators, guards and interrogators.
According to the publishers: "Torture Music is the kind of music that’s perfect for sitting in the Afghan or Iraqi Desert, sharing a prisoner for a night, or relaxing in a military barrack or a CIA black site in some godforsaken country on a lazy afternoon. It's music thats just makes you feel free and drives others crazy. '
TORTURE CLASSICS is seemingly released by Time Life, one the world's largest entertainment companies. However, if you take a closer look, you will find that it is a project by notorious e-activists/artists UBERMORGEN feat. James Powderly.
The SMS slingshot is a device designed to create digital augmented realities in urban space.
The device is shaped as a wooden slingshot with a build-in mobile phone display, a keypad and a laser. Users can type a text message and shoot it straight at a large facade. A projector pointed at the facade will show the message as a colour splash with the message written within.
The project is designed by VR/URBAN, a group of digital intervention-activists based in Berlin. They will demonstrate the device at various media-festival in the next couple of months. Check their website for dates and technical specs.
Related:
The Image Fulgurator + SMS Guerrilla Projector + Facade Printer + Graffiti Analysis
• www.vrurban.org/smslingshot.html + a demonstration on YouTube
Contact: Sebastian Campion