WORKING TITLE: Porous City: Exploring Alternative Spaces for Culture

Introduction: Make a trailer which can be pulled along by a vehicle (or humans, or cattle) to be parked in many different parts of the city and develop it for being used as a compact cultural space. Some of the features of the bus are summarised below. They will be realised in a phased manner, which will be defined soon.
the trailer will be made of bamboo, metal and other materials. it will have a usable inside-space as well as a roof space. it will offer free wireless internet, clean drinking water, mobile charging space etc. to each neighborhood in which it is parked. events happening at the trailer might be live webcast when there are no privacy issues.

1. a wide set of environmental sensors will be installed at the trailer and the data collected will be shared in standard formats on the site.
2. some of the possible places in which the trailer can be parked: parking lots, under flyovers, empty grounds, along the high-way etc. site-responsive uses of the space will be conceptualized for each location at which it is parked.
3. organisations and individuals in the city will be involved in proposing different uses for the space through a web-based network.
4. a parallel exploration will be to use alternative energy sources for all the needs of the bus. I would explore solar, cow-dung and other sources that come-up in the research.
5. some possible uses of the space:

• invite artists to live and work in the unit and work on multiple-kinds of projects,
• run small themed festivals in the unit (alternative energy pioneers, urban farming, new games for your kids etc.) for people in the neighborhood to drop in and interact and participate,
• offer a small performance space to promote local musical/theatrical talent,
• offer a meeting space to local youth initiatives,
• offer a  publicity and distribution mechanism for alternative cultural, political and activist groups,
• organise networked events like the luminous green workshop in and around the space.

Exchange: Continuing the tradition of open-definition/specification labs/hubs around the world, the project will maintain detailed documentation of the process of putting it together and share it through the web. The effort would also make friends in the region and around the world to harness the innovative potential and conceptual diversity of practitioners and researchers around the world to extend the role which it could possibly play.

After travelling around different parts of Bangalore for six months, the trailer will be gifted to some other artist / group in the country / region to be re-configured and re-used in some locally relevant scenarios.