(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
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
Posted by Sebastian on Mar 10, 2011
Last Expo is an online exhibition featuring abandoned art.
The exhibition consists of photographs of art that has been dumped on the streets where the public can have a last look before garbage workers take it away. Forever.
The exhibition is ongoing and anyone can contribute by submitting a photo.
The Last Expo is an initiative of THEY, a creative agency in Amsterdam.
Related: I Any Color You Like
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...
Posted by Sebastian on Feb 26, 2011
The experimental event series Platform2 in Boston is inviting members of the public to get lost and subsequently, to share and discuss their experience.
In today's hyper-geo-located world it can be hard to get lost, and the aim of the event is to create a situation for confusion in order to rethink the surrounding world.
People are invited to choose their own site and the method to get lost as long as they don't interpret it metaphorically (like getting lost on the Internet or in a video game, screen, movie, book or device).
It works like this:
1. Send an email to info@platform2.info
2. You will receive an inspirational reading ("Getting Lost" by Franco La Cecla) and instructions for documenting your journey
3. Get Lost
4. Email them your documentation (10 images & text)
5. Show up to the conversation at the Harvard Map Library on 3/10 and share your experience.
Related: Urban Disorientation Game + The City Formerly Known as Cambridge
• www.platform2.info (view the invite in full here)
Posted by Sebastian on Feb 15, 2011
Between 2005 and 2008 the French artist Armelle Caron created a series of graphic anagrams based on various city maps.
First she simplified the maps and translated all urban elements (buildings, blocks, parks) into hundreds of monochrome blocks. Then she deconstructed the maps and organized all blocks in a new system according to their shapes and sizes.
The result was quite intriguing and last year Armelle took the project a step further and created a three-dimensional version for the exhibition Villes en Morceaux (Cities in Pieces) at the Cité de l'architecture et du Patrimoine in Paris.
Based on a map of Paris, she produced 3500 small pieces of wood, each piece corresponding to a block on the city map. Armelle organized workshops with children and encouraged them to 'take ownership' of the forms and use their creativity to compose new cities.
Not surprisingly, some playful and imaginative city structures emerged during the exhibition.
Semi-related: Would you let a child cut your hair?
• www.armellecaron.fr // via
Give a Minute is an online platform that encourages urban residents to respond to questions posed by featured city leaders.
The platform is shaped as a virtual brainstorm session and ideas are visualized using Post-it notes in different colors (apparently, there is no explanation as to what the colors represent). To enable viral interaction, ideas can also be shared on Facebook and Twitter.
All ideas are reviewed by community leaders from the private and public sector and the best ones receive a personal response.
Give a Minute launched in Chicago in November, followed by Memphis. It will soon come to New York and San Jose. The platform is privately supported but it is not really clear how it is administered and how cities are being selected - or if the platform is open sourced for any city to employ and develop.
Don't miss the great video-intro on Vimeo.
NB. Interestingly, the navigation of the website is based on Google Maps (but without showing any maps).
Related: Idea Map: What Citizens Want + Dear Copenhagen + I Wish This Was + City of Hamtramck Master Plan + Verbeter de buurt
• www.giveaminute.info via GOOD
The municipality of Copenhagen has a created an online platform, which allows citizens to share their visions for the city.
At the website, users can submit ideas in different categories and add them to a visual 'Idea Map',
A new urban plan for Copenhagen's inner city will be developed in the autumn of 2011, and 'Idea Map' is one of many elements put forward by the Municipality to generate input and democratize the political process.
Related: while collaborative ideation is a really good thing, it could be interesting to see the concept developed with a little more direction and urgency in line with the OpenIDEO community. See also Dear Copenhagen + I Wish This Was
• www.indrebylokaludvalg.kk.dk (in Danish)
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Contact: Sebastian Campion