The Goat Farm Arts Center - Free Zone
Provoking Partygoers Through Public Art
Scroll ↓
Project Overview:
Is it possible to tell a story entirely through street signs? Commissioned by The Goat Farm Arts Center for Creative Loafing’s Best of Atlanta block party, Second Story staged a design fiction intervention, using outdoor environmental signage to weave a tale set in a “plausible future world”. Our premise: If we could see signs from our future world, what would they tell us about who we have become? We played upon the ubiquity of signs to provoke reflection about who we are, how we live, and where we are headed in the connected age.
My Role:
A large part of my role, as content lead, was to develop the concept and backstory (see below).
Once upon a time…
Our story imagined a not-too-distant future, where the ethos of “always-on” has evolved to an extreme where no one is ever actually “off” anymore. Through mobile devices, wearables, smart objects, and even micro-technology implanted in our bodies, our future selves are constantly monitored and measured, all under the guise of self-actualization. With the help of technology (think Fitbit but more pervasive), we have mastered our baser instincts and engineered ourselves to become conceivably happier, healthier, more productive beings. In this future version of Atlanta, South Broad Street (the site of the party) is one of the last technologically “dark” places in the city, a sort of de facto red-light district for the human spirit. Here, imperfection is celebrated, and messages of resistance urge people to set themselves free.
"We live in a designed world where technology is ubiquitous and more and more encroaching on our privacy and freedom. This public installation brings awareness to this dependency and the future vision of government control and rebellion against it. Set in the environment of an Atlanta block party this installation created confusion, irritation, questions and discussion on and offline. A truly thought-provoking exhibition in the public space."
— Jury Comments, SEGD Global Design Awards
(Merit Award Winner, 2017)
Analog interactivity: We transformed regular municipal signs into interactive ones that could sense their surroundings. As guests walked by or otherwise engaged, the signs revealed hidden messaging, uncovering layers of story. Lenticular printing gave us a low-cost way of achieving interactivity: the sign’s messaging changed with the viewing angle.
Lo-fi high-tech: Like scrappy indie filmmakers trying to pull off sci-fi, we used edge-lit, etched acrylic to imitate the light values of a high-tech future––on shoestring budget.
