Interactive Installations Take Over Empty Office Floor
Today, the 28th of September, the HOT100 2013 who where selected by The New Institute, will finish off the HOT100 Days this afternoon from 12 PM at TodaysArt Festival in The Hague with the HOT100 SHOW, a pop-up exhibition at an empty office floor in a former Dutch ministry building where the public will get a chance to meet and get to know more of the most talented graduates in the creative sector the Netherlands has to offer this year.
Pablo Calderón’s The Other Market is one of the featured installations at the HOT100 SHOW. The selection of this Social Design project shows that this year’s HOT100 selection covers a broad range of creative disciplines. Design Academy graduate Calderón created an urban platform that aims to foster public dialogue about relevant issues. Central aspect of the Other Market is a traveling street market cart that offers products and services like any other market cart, but one thing is different: the merchant doesn’t accept your money, he wants a dialogue with you. The goods, the Asian street food-inspired cart and the actions serve as an excuse, to engage ordinary people in public dialogues and amplify their voices through different media.
By introducing an informal and everyday-life object like a market cart as well as working with transactions, he found a great incentive for people to start conversations with Calderón. “The interventions also play with the ambiguity of the law and informality, for they imply trading things on the street (illegal), yet with no money involved (legal)”, the social designer says. He started experimenting with his market cart in front of a McDonald’s restaurant in Eindhoven, where he offered self-made hamburgers to passers-by in exchange for a talk about a random subject, that was written on a chalkboard sign. In the past months The Other Market has traveled to a few other cities in the Netherlands. Today you can see it in action during the HOT100 SHOW in The Hague.
But there’s much more going today. During the HOT100 SHOW, in several rounds of lectures, first one to start at 3 PM, the alumni will present themselves to the public with short presentations. In particular, there will be talks and demonstrations on social hackers, on dreams, cities and inceptions, breaking news most wanted narratives, natural philosophy and about things talking back. So, imagine for instance a collective of list-makers, or graffiti that does not come out of a spray can but out of a computerized graffitizer, or a book that finds narratives in spam mail, or a container that allows you to watch a plant grow from head to toe so-to-speak, or what is behind an augmented alto saxophone. It is a great chance to see and learn about some nifty ideas and innovations coming from a new generation of media talents. If you’re at TodaysArt today, be sure to check out the exhibition. It’s open until 11 PM.
This article belongs to a series of posts on The New Institute’s HOT100 2013, this year’s selection of the most talented graduates in the fields of media, art and technology. In a special series of articles Pop-Up City highlights the best what the Dutch creative scene has in store for the upcoming years.
