March 31, 2007, 10:06 pm

Interactive artwork on a large scale should encompass and include a community as a whole, potentially individually experienced, but collectively acted. The community is the basis of change and action and despite efforts of formal policy, rhetoric or incentives, the actors within the community will ultimately move forward any change or effort.

Watching a documentary on Cuba's dealings with the peak oil crisis throughout the 1990s led me to a different, if already realized somewhere, notion of what it takes for change. The community moved with the challenges of energy-deficits and together, collectively, rearranged their urban spaces and uses of that space to create a workable new social structure. This structure understood the environmental challenges of heavy pesticides, reliance on fossil fuels and the dangers of large corporate farming and aided in the societal transitions that allowed Cuba to continue existence despite US foreign policy.

Now, I mean not to add to the abundance of left-wing writings of Cuba sympathizers, though I certainly count myself as one, but rather view this large and complex issue as a case-studied, albeit overly-simplified. The community is the base for change and yet the community can only exist through physical public space. Menzies speaks clearly on the importance of the commons and the misguided thinking of the potential of the digital commons and I will only echo her thoughts. If a large, national, global issue can swing the citizen into action, that is, local action, then the community is working. Cuba met an energy deficit with socially collective thought and then action, moving away from factory farms and into urban gardening, away from the car and into bicycles and public transit, away from large supermarkets and into neighbourhood-based markets. The action of conversing and acting with your neighbour is such a simple and yet imperative part of a democratic state.

The community-based and locally-driven interactive artwork can begin to reclaim the public space and re-foster the public sphere. I would add that this space must be green and flourishing rather than flattened with concrete. Artwork is the bed on which the community can lie together and watch the night-sky again. Speaking in the language of culture as opposed to political rhetoric, advertising slogans or religious dogma will arm the people with a feeling of collective being and aid in the reclamation of public space and thereby democracy.

A city like Windsor is so geographically spread out, public spaces seem to be a near impossibility, and yet I cannot imagine a more perfect candidate for such artwork and action.

By Justin | 0 COMMENTS | POSTED IN: text

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