A device to read the city

By reading we mean finding another possible form of seeing, moving, listening

Concept: The project starts from a concept that an urban environment can be read, analyzed and criticized as a text. By aimlessly wandering and drifting we can name exactly what we see, hear. List making can make very explicit what is missing, and who is not present or what is successfully hidden. If the city can be read it can also be annotated Posters, newspapers, graffittis, clothing, performances in public squares, protest, traffic serve as footnotes, annotations with very diverse comments.

More context

Many services and "smart solutions" provide comfort but also drastically reduce the level of unpredictability in a city. In a highly scripted cities, filled with prohibitions, navigations, how can we use scripts to enforce and strenghten unpredictability?

What is it? (physical description)

A physical device and a publication closely connected, working together. (Used as a method to encourage chance discovery and unproductive inefficiency, activated by a workshop)

Components:a device

• a tube that can be carried with you and accompany your walk
• a tilt sensor
• device is multifunctional, can be used to observe and to listen to
• what material its made from? fabric

a guide - printed

• a manual for the device
• collect scripts

workshop (scripts writing, a walk, exchanging and performing scripts and rituals, sharing the "unsmooth" encounters)

• scripts writing
• a walk to perform scripts

documentation of the workshops and the project

Why make it?

In a smart city ruled by obsession with perfection, maintenence and efficiency, how do we measure to whom those spaces are serving? And who decide what is the norm? This project is an attempt to find new forms of observing the city, to understand who is present in a particular space and what are their real needs and desires? What kind of city do we acually want? For the people performing this to be brave and curious, be concious of the unwritten structures that are designed into the 'city behaviour' and try to break them. At the Gemente visit, we were told that 98% of our behaviour is without having to think about it, but we do not belive that is true, our behaviour in this environment is really dictated by the rules and restrictions that are in place. Re-claim a city that does not feel yours with these little breaks of paths.

Allows continuosly overwriting many parts of one street ( seeing a familiar place within a very different contex)

Different narrative, objects, words, sounds, observations revealed