Reconstruction Vol. 15, No. 3
Return to Contents»
Inventions of Activism "World Without Water" / Kalli Paakspuu
<1> A restorative and favorite space after life's trials is the transitional space of a bathroom vanity where monotony or the intensity of living can be washed away. We refresh, rehearse, rework and realign an inner to an outer world through cleansing before a mirror. In "World Without Water", a new media interactive installation by co-creators, Suzette Araujo, Tahir Mahmood and Kalli Paakspuu, the act of facing a mirror becomes a physical interaction in culture jamming. Produced originally as a prototype at the Canadian Film Centre, "World Without Water" utilizes the physical interaction of a bathroom vanity in a worldwide activism about water consciousness. The sink and vanity mirror are (re)formed into an interventive site of environmental activism. This new media experience was featured at CODE Live One in the Cultural Olympiad in Vancouver from Feb. 4 to 28, 2010.
<2> By turning the tap we stream in the mirror tagged photos from Flickr.com and see a global view on the absence and abundance of fresh water. If both taps are turned the user is invited into an associational play with the "hot" (absence) and "cold" (abundance) images uploaded by professional and amateur photographers and made available through the live internet connection. Educational and entertaining, the user makes narratives from views of water from Eurasia to Africa to the Badlands of North America while washing. The tap handles control a theatrical and fractured soundscape based on the traditional round song, "There's a Hole in the Bucket" which gets richer and thicker in relation to the image and tap flow. A live web stream constantly uploads so no experience is repeated. As the taps pour cold water from the right handle and hot water from the left, the user enters an associative play with images and soundscapes. Pleasing to the ear and inviting improvisational play, the right side cold tap releases images of clean and beautiful water streaming from the top to the bottom of the mirror. The left side is toxic sights and deserts. The user turns tap handles that are flow sensors to the live streaming from Flickr.com. A recombinant narrative through the sound, image and mirrored self produces an interruption of binary logics in a third space envisioning "we".
<3> When the tap is turned off, the screen resolves into two large images - one of abundance and one of absence, with a provocative quote about water: "The wars of the twenty-first century will be fought over water" (Ismael Sarageldin former vice-president of the World Bank) among others. A second level of interaction occurs through the general public's use of the Flickr social software, where anyone can upload images from their homes.
<4> "World Without Water" is licensed with Flickr.com to access this global archive of copyleft images which enter the user experience through the tap flow. A critical consciousness or political learning then occurs in a public of images which circulate in the private space of the sink before a mirror. This image archive evolves with every use when newly uploaded images enter our game design.
<5> The intention of "World Without Water" is to create awareness of the global crisis and shortage of clean, drinkable and diminishing water supply. The user in the everyday cleansing ritual reframes a physical relation to water with image game pieces that flow across the mirrored personal face.
<6> The commodity of water alters when the user is made aware of the power relations of their personal use. Through our mirrored selves, we become aware of our connection to people, places and the cycle of water. The images downloading into our experience come from all the continents and the user improvises and makes sense of their relation to each other and to personal use. Water appears physically before the user and imagistically in its different forms, uses and abuses. The interactive experience leaves an indelible memory.
<7> Culture jamming leads a user to a détournement and when caught off guard the possibility of becoming someone or something different (Sandlin & Milam). Here private space is interrupted and a passive relation in a body's time, space and emotion is transformed to an inter-embodiment which is an engagement with others visually, imaginatively and by touch. A community politic from the primacy and privacy of our first person relation to water becomes a consciousness raising and a de-colonization of private space. The creators invite the public to upload images of water to the Flickr.com site to this improvisational game.
<8> "World Without Water" invites us to experience the transitional space as a "pedagogical hinge" that puts the inside and outside, the self and other, the personal and social in a refigurement. Users as authors resist, reappropriate, reuse, and recreate relationships of the everyday. The interactive experience makes a civic engagement that is a knowledge production in everyday life.
<9> Activism is thus linked with the user's personal water consumption. "World Without Water" reappropriates a private space before a mirror into a participatory cultural production. Turn the tap and wash becomes a culture jam via a live connection with Flickr.com. The right tap floods the sink with cold water and the mirror streams pristine images of nature in balance, clean water, bathing bodies juxtaposed to our mirrored reflection. The left tap floods the sink with hot water and the mirror streams with a river of toxic wastes, desert landscapes and melted glaciers. This once private reflective space is thus provocatively charged with an activism.
Works Cited
Handelman, J. M. Culture jamming: Expanding the application of the critical research project. Advances in Consumer research, 26, pp. 399-404.
Jennifer A. Sandlin and Jennifer L. Milam, "Mixing Pop (Culture) and Politics": Cultural Resistance, Culture Jamming, and Anti-Consumption Activism as Critical Public Pedagogy", © 2008 by The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Curriculum Inquiry 38:3 (2008), pp. 323 - 350 (on-line).
Return to Top»