So, I came to ITP because I want to construct something. The more I am here, the more I believe my original vision was onto something, which just needed a lot of polishing. This is being done on a constant basis, and it is slowly coming together.
I intend to build a mono – seat public bus, basically a ride, that will, to a certain extent mimic any of the ones that you find daily on the streets of Lima. The behavior of these small transport units, according to sociologists amongst others, describes the culture .
The installation itself will consist of a seat, hooked up accordingly to “shake” which will “call” you when you go by it, as the person who collects the money (“cobrador” we call it) inside the bus does in Lima. Besides the main seat itself, the installation will consist of three screens:
- The first screen, situated on the right hand side of the person will show “images and sound” of the street they are going through.
- The middle screen, smallest and right in front of the user (or perhaps even a “control panel”, which will be my laptop basically) will show the route, through a MAP. A little bus moving through the screen as it passes by the streets, and as it happens in Lima, you can make it stop whenever you want. There will be a microphone supplied for that.
- The third (and last) screen, located on the left side, will give “web” information, through a link (or links) or actual charts constructed from scratch in case there is no web information available.
To make the experience more “realistic”, people should “pay” for their ride, by depositing a coin on an appropriate place. This will be “asked” of them once they enter. Of course, once they are done, the money will be returned to them.
I envision that this device, or “interactive art piece”, will serve at least three purposes, and will be directed to two main audiences (to begin with):
1. For Lima dwellers:
It will serve to allow people of the city of Lima who happen to get on a bus everyday experience the city in a completely different way. Hopefully, it will:
• Show people what a map looks like, allowing them to get comfortable with them.
• Inspire people to look for different things when they travel on the bus; in a sense, allowing new ways to look at the city.
• Familiarize people with statistics: What do they mean? What can we really do with numbers? So, that’s what happens every time I answer a survey / census?
• This will hopefully make math, and specifically statistics simple, nice, friendly, meaningful and useful in everyday life beyond the common use in exchange rate and basic counting of things.
In a sense, this will feel like a documentary on-the-go experience, were things are being explained as they go through there, hopefully within a historic perspective, so people will never look at the things they see daily as “common place” again.
Eventually, and to allow people who can’t get o the installation experience some of it, the videos will be uploaded to youtube and / or the pictures to flicker, since people have a lot of access to the internet.
2. For people who do NOT live in Lima:
2a. “Experiencing the ride”. It will give them a glimpse of what it means to travel in a third world city of 8 million inhabitants, were a great number of us believe that the Law is there to twist and bend within an inch of itself. Uncomfortable seats. Blazing music. Random turnabouts by the driver, whenever he feels like it. And varying fees if you know how to ask for it.
2b. Finding more about what they are seeing / experiencing. Based on the same information and footage that Lima Dwellers have used, these will have a deeper and more contextualized display of possible explanations of WHY things are as they are, in a historical socio-economic perspective. It could be used as a vehicle of letting possible donors and other people interested in working / aiding / knowing more about what a Latin American third world country big city looks like and what to expect when traveling to it (or when wanting to “help” it). People’s brains just work differently.
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