Facilitating creative exchange at a street level, DropSpots encourages people to use the nooks and crannies of their physical environment as places to exchange gifts with others. Participants leave virtual markers on a website to map where they have concealed an item. This is creating a DropSpot. Once a dropspot has been created, it exists almost like a physical mailbox, where people can leave handwritten messages, mix cds, drawings, raw materials - gifts of no financial value that bring their own personality out from behind the walls of their house and into the shared space of the street. DropSpots integrates the virtual space of the web with the real space of our living environment, and (unlike the web) is specific to a local community. Participants can share what they found, and how they modified it by uploading photos to the website. Participants are updated via email or text message when a new item has been left for them to find.

We have always enjoyed finding personal items on the street, such as photographs or lost messages, and wondering who these people are, and what their lives are like. We think there is magical potential in the creation of a system for people to purposefully leave items for those that live around them.

Our group comes from an ideal mixture of backgrounds: web art, documentary film and performance art. We wanted to make a project that integrated the virtual nature of the web with the physical landscape of the streets. We wanted to make something that was essentially local, while having an international overview.

The curious. Those people who are willing to participate in their daily life and environment in a way that will bring creative return.