(small) creative initiatives that challenge (big) traditional ideas
• ( egoistic ) • activistic • architectural • audible • cinematic • conceptual • graphic • strategic • surface • urban • wireless
Copenhagen Metro is helping promote talented Danish authors, poets and graphic artists by distributing their works at various Metro stations.
The project is a result of a competition held earlier this year, which led to the publication of 13 small booklets that are offered to passengers free of charge.
The booklets have been published in 300.000 copies, and they are also available for download.
Metro-Literature is produced by Copenhagen Metro in collaboration with the Italian initiative Subway Letteratura.
The Democratic Set is a rapid series of short screen-based video portraits created by the Australian Back to Back Theatre.
The latest version of the project features inhabitants in the Belgium city of Leuven, who were invited to show up at an outdoor filmset and perform a small act.
After five days of filming, the footage was turned into a 17 minute long alternative video portrait of Leuven and its people.
The project was commissioned by the art center STUK.
The petrol station Statoil has created a *bicycle nursery* to meet the needs of Copenhagen's ever growing bike culture.
Selected petrol stations now have small designated bicycle areas equipped with pumps, soapy water, sponges, paper towels and plastic gloves. Cyclists can also borrow a bicycle care kit with hex keys, oil and tire levers.
The service is free of charge and Statoil has used the occasion to add bike essentials such as patch kits and lights to its product assortment (not free of charge).
Other bike related posts: Bicycle Butlers + Cykelbanditten targets ugly bikes + FreeBikes + Bycicle Cover Ads
• Statoil Cykelpleje (in Danish)
Sound Tossing is a project that combines shoe-tossing (the act of throwing a pair of shoes onto overhead wires) and DIY audio electronics.
Small sound generators hooked up to loudspeakers are thrown onto overhead electric wires, buildings and trees, from which they emit acoustic signals.
The project's prototype "urban cricket" is a solar powered audio device that releases cricket sounds. Other components that can be used to generate sounds are motion detectors, timers and light-sensetive switches.
Sound Tossing (aka "soundfiti") is created by Reinhard Gupfinger from Austria who ran DIY workshops at this year's Ars Electronica Festival. Instructions on how to build a unit is available online. The website does no provide much info on the environmental consequences, so we'll assume that you are supposed to clean up after yourself.
Related: Led Throwies by Graffiti Research Lab.
Copenhagen is about to get itself a new place called the Red Square. As opposed to its famous pendant in Moscow, the one in Copenhagen is red, literally.
The square is painted in red tones and in rectangular shapes. When viewed from above, it looks like a three-dimensional skewed shape.
The square is a part of the urban park 'Superkilen', a long stretch which also contains a green and a black zone. Each zone facilitates different activities.
Ping-Pong tables from Spain
Benches from Kuwait
Signage from Russia
Playground from Japan
Bike racks from Norway
Superkilen is located in Nørrebro (north-west), a multicultural part of Copenhagen with 60 different nationalities represented. To reflect the community, the park will be furnished with elements like benches, bins, trees, playgrounds, ping-pong tables, lamp-posts and signage - all imported from 60 different countries.
Superkilen is created by Superflex, (BIG) Bjarke Ingels Group and TOPOTEK1.
Related color landmarks: Favela Painting + Beukelsblue + Blue Road + Delete project
• www.superkilen.dk (in Danish)
The Free Art and Technology Lab (F.A.T) has created a series of 100 QR stencil designs that can be used to provide directions, information, and warnings to digital nomads in urban space.
The project - called "Hobo Codes" - is inspired by the Hobo signs developed by 19th century vagabonds and migratory workers to cope with the difficulty of nomadic life.
QR codes usually direct users to a URL, but the digital Hobo Codes contains simple information, such as an advice or warning. Scanning the codes reveal messages like "vegans beware", "those aren't women" and "it's fake".
The stencils are made using the "QR Stencil Generator", a utility which converts QR codes into vector-based stencil patterns suitable for laser-cutting. The stencil generator is developed by Golan Levin and Asa Foster III.
• QR Stenciler and QR Hobo Codes
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
If we were to create a city today- what would the financial system for cultural productions look like?
In Sweden, they have asked the question and come up with the crowdsourcing model Crowdculture.
Crowdculture is an online platform that allows people to create, select and fund cultural activities in Stockholm. To participate, people have to sign up and 'invest' 50 SEK (6 €) per month. Each individual investment is then leveraged by public funds.
21 projects have been submitted so far and 8 of them are now fully financed.
Crowdculture is designed to support relatively small activities. Initiatives include a documentary about lesbian lifestyle, a workshop created by young female palestinian refugees and a dance performance.
This entry was mistakenly dated July 7. The correct date is June 7.
Freshly cooked food served from a temporary outdoor kitchen at the harbourfront in central Copenhagen.
The kitchen served just one dish (at 42 kr/5 €) and in two days, it managed to attract more people than most restaurants do in a week.
The event was organized by the organic online shop Aarstiderne (The Seasons) who occasionally show up in the physical world to organize food events.
Related: Pop-Up App Store
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
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Contact: Sebastian Campion