Sign in Diepsloot in Johannesburg

PSAs just got a little more media savvy. Recognizing the extent and accessibility of cell phone use in India, the BBC World Service Trust launched an HIV prevention campaign via humorous cell phone ring tones. Now your phone can belt out an acapella chorus of “condom condom condom!” Which contacts would you assign that ring to? Maybe not Mom… And what other health messages could we turn into ring tones… how about “fat kid fat kid fat kid!”

Reminds me of other services via mobile technology like Wireless Amber Alerts that send out depressing but powerful text messages on missing children in your area. Seems like there’s a lot more we can do with this kind of set-up, including neighborhood-centric text messages between residents, public transportation text messages on changes with your local line, government text messages on free flu shot services, etc.

NYC’s 311 service has definitely made it easier for citizens to report pot holes, complain about noise, and collectively improve the lay of the land. After choking on gnarly fried chicken vapors in our Red Antenna office (the vent from Popeye’s Chicken shoots out by our window) we called 311 and a health inspector came out the next week. City services in action! Of course he came out during the hour when the smell disappeared, but now I sit in fried chicken vapors knowing the City works, sort of… This is just the beginning…

Hey kids, it’s collage time again! And Men In Hats is now a series… Words from Pocket Calculator by Kraftwerk.

Hey kids, it’s collage time! Here’s a new one I made last night. Words from Punkrocker by TeddyBears featuring Iggy Pop.

I’m excited to head out to Johannesburg next week to be a part of Global Studio for the third year! While I was getting my Masters degree in urban planning at Columbia University, I had the opportunity to participate in the program, where international interdisciplinary students, academics, and professionals come together to collaborate on community-based projects. Informed by the UN Millennium Development Goals, the program promotes forms of education and practice that will benefit under-served communities and facilitate bottom-up, collaborative partnerships. I love the program so much that I’m a bonafide lifer and help guide work and develop materials as a Project Associate.

While the month-long program has moved to different cities each year in the past, this year we’ll be returning to Johannesburg, South Africa again to continue various projects on housing, the environment, the arts, and information. We’ll be continuing our collaborative work with residents in Diepsloot (“DEEP-sloot”), a northern township that is one of the fastest growing areas in the City. There are around 100,000 residents, many live in shacks, and access to basic services like sewage and running water are limited. After talking with residents, community groups, and local government last year, a team developed around the topic of information. There is a strong local desire to improve information-sharing within the community.

Last year we conducted a community survey to learn more about how people currently get their information and how they would like to receive information. Based on 225 responses, 88% of people read newspapers, 84% own radios, and both mediums were wanted as news sources at the local scale. Since then, local resident Bongani Baloyi formed a non-profit organization called Diepsloot Community News that seeks to be an umbrella organization for local communication. The creation of DCN was instigated by an incident in June 2007 when a child went missing in Diepsloot. While she was found safely two days later only a few blocks from her home, the episode brought to light the lack of comprehensive communication infrastructure in Diepsloot.

This is where we are as we begin our program this year. There’s a lot of potential in many mediums, including a newspaper, radio station, SMS cell phone technology, and community chalkboards. Project development will really take more shape once we’re on the ground collaborating with Diepsloot Community News and discussing needs and interests with community members. It will also depend on the skills of the team, whose backgrounds will mostly be in architecture and urban planning. In the end, we hope to learn a lot from the people in Diepsloot and help them develop a better information-sharing system to facilitate transparency and harness the great amount of local knowledge and resources within the community.

Favorite Song No. 76: ‘The Chase’ by Giorgio Moroder. Who would have thought italo disco’s hottest track would be paired with a sweaty chase through chicken coups? From the soundtrack to the 1978 film Midnight Express, ‘The Chase’ provides a driving electro beat and sparkling synth melody as one man runs from the po and struggles for freedom in a Turkish prison. And… it works! Who doesn’t love sweaty prison disco?

The song secured Giorgio Moroder as the king of synth (with Vangelis a close second) and he went on to make the moody soundtrack for Scarface. Unfortunately, his italo disco sound became more corn-fed over time and he gave us ’80s anthems ‘Flashdance’ and ‘Take my Breath Away.’ But that is kind of awesome too.

Fun fact: 43 days after Midnight Express played at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival, the U.S. and Turkey entered formal negotiations for the exchange of prisoners. Oh, the power of entertainment…

When we were going to college in Ann Arbor, James and I and other friends would often drive to Detroit to go to techno parties on shady streets. One time we drove back with a shattered hole for a passenger window. Good old Detroit! These days the renovated waterfront and downtown are increasingly populated by mothers and kids and couples on dates. It’s an unfamiliar and exciting sight, partially due to the help of Project for Public Spaces. Now the City needs to aim for that happy medium between dangerous & creative and safe & sterile…

Paying homage to his hometown and the citizens that  invented techno, James has made the ultimate Detroit techno mix called Detroit All-City Classic. ‘Sharivari,’ ‘Night Drive Through Babylon,’ ‘Alleys of Your Mind,’ and other thumping classics from the last three decades will make you nod your head hard. Download it for free and read his soulful commentary about America’s former murder capital and “the muscular arm of the American underground.”

Image above by James from his site.

My Sidewalk Psychiatry project has gained some more attention recently, thanks to Boingboing and some great personal sites. Emotional prodding in public space also reminds me of this fresh project from the ’90s. Graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister often references it as one of the few art/design projects that has “touched his heart.” Mimicking the standard signs in New York City’s subway cars, an artist named True replaced them with some humorous and touching life instructions. A photo can be found here via LarimdaME’s Flickr.

I’ve never ridden the subway with despair, but I do enjoy a commute with some romantic melancholy. Few things are more poignant than listening to moody music in crowded places. Using a cool and simple tool called Muxtape.com, I created a mellow mp3 mixtape I like to call Ten Songs That Will Turn Any Old Subway Ride Into the Most Poignant Life-in-the-City Scene From a Heartbreaking Movie. Listen and sigh. Track list below.

1. Nico - These Days
2. Air - Mike Mills
3. Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin - Je T’aime Moi Non Plus
4. Mellow - Airplane
5. David Bowie - Space Oddity
6. Ratatat - Cherry
7. The Zombies - Beechwood Park
8. The Rolling Stones - She Smiled Sweetly
9. Sonic Youth - Superstar
10. Brian Eno - The Big Ship

Artwork above is by True and was scanned from Sagmeister’s great book Made You Look.

Favorite toy no. 257: Speak & Spell. In 1978, Texas Instruments introduced the first single-chip speech synthesizer which was able to electronically duplicate the human vocal tract on a single chip of silicon. In charming and fresh fashion, their first product was the Speak & Spell for children and it quickly became one of the most popular toys of the ’80s.

The inviting bleeps and gentle man-voice have since been sampled by various artists, including Kraftwerk and Dopplereffekt, and the machines themselves have been reconstructed into crazy-ass synthesizers by those with know-how. Texas Instruments went on to produce boring calculators for adults, but they’ll always be grandfather of the talking toy and that makes them supercool.

James (aka KinoSport) just made a hot new mix called Crashed in Radioland. Bookended by In the Mood for Love sound bites, it’s a warm, echo-y land of motivating background music to work to. And as time goes by, it shifts ever-so-slightly into soft-focus, just like you at work! Download it for free and get productive to old school dub techno hits by Basic Channel and Burger & Ink and wall-of-sound anthems from Brian Eno and The Field.

Image above by James from his site.

My Red Antenna cohorts have put up a Red Antenna music site with some of our recent tracks and mixes, as well as a few of our previous CD and vinyl releases. If you like minimal techno, electro, disco house, or krautrock, you’ll loooove Red Antenna. Listen on the spot and download truckloads of free hott music!