interaction design + literary arts

Project documentation, interviewing passersby as they interpret the signage I created.

Composite of the four signs, distributed throughout Tompkins Square Park.

Screenshot of mobile website soliciting sign interpretations.

Sample user responses.

Absurd in Public

2012

What happens when a community has a hand in deciding what street signage orders it to do? This project creatively interprets the language of street signage to highlight how communities form spontaneous social codes.

Standard royalty-free pictograms were combined, digitally manipulated, and printed onto acual road signs. The four signs were placed in a public park. I dressed up as a Department of Transportation (DOT) surveyor, claiming these new signs were soon to be installed and that I was researching public interpretations of their meaning. I also solicited interpretations online via QR codes on each sign that linked to a website form.

Commissioned for the Remediating the Social conference November 1-3, 2012, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Web programming generously proided by John Cardoso, Christian Ramirez, and Dima Farer.