Sunday, May 8, 2011

Culture jamming as official policy. (AKA watch out for mimes!)

Harvard Gazette: Academic turns city into a social experiment

Antanas Mockus had just resigned from the top job of Colombian National University. A mathematician and philosopher, Mockus looked around for another big challenge and found it: to be in charge of, as he describes it, "a 6.5 million person classroom."

Mockus, who had no political experience, ran for mayor of Bogotá; he was successful mainly because people in Colombia's capital city saw him as an honest guy. With an educator's inventiveness, Mockus turned Bogotá into a social experiment just as the city was choked with violence, lawless traffic, corruption, and gangs of street children who mugged and stole. It was a city perceived by some to be on the verge of chaos.

People were desperate for a change, for a moral leader of some sort. The eccentric Mockus, who communicates through symbols, humor, and metaphors, filled the role. When many hated the disordered and disorderly city of Bogotá, he wore a Superman costume and acted as a superhero called "Supercitizen." People laughed at Mockus' antics, but the laughter began to break the ice of their extreme skepticism.



"No, sir, you can't bob for apples with your hand."


Basically, this academic ran for mayor, won the position, and then proceeded to implement policies such as..

  • hiring mimes to direct traffic
  • giving out "thumbs up"/"thumbs down" cards for citizen to use to pass judgment on fellow citizens' behavior
  • asking citizens to voluntarily pay 10% more in taxes (63,000 people complied)
  • and more!

What struck me the most about this particular article/story, however, was this:

"The distribution of knowledge is the key contemporary task," Mockus said. "Knowledge empowers people. If people know the rules, and are sensitized by art, humor, and creativity, they are much more likely to accept change."

This, I think, is a huge insight into how we can create effective designs (or really, how we can create effective anythings). We know already that knowledge alone isn't enough to get people to change; you have to make them receptive to the idea of change, and I think that good design is one way of doing that. As was mentioned somewhere in a post from a few weeks ago, people respond very well to playfulness and humor — it causes them to drop their guard for a few moments, leaving themselves open to subsequent ideas and suggestions. Good design doesn't always need to be humorous, obviously, but I think that it has to be able to cut through cynicism and world weariness somehow before its message can be heard. Sometimes this can be done subtly, but other times, like here, it can be quite in-your-face about it (in a good way).

Do you think something like this would work in Chicago? Has something like this succeeded or failed in Chicago (or some other major American city)?

14 comments:

  1. I concur. I don't think that Chicagoans would be receptive to this. I definitely don't see any Chicagoan voluntarily paying 10% more in taxes in this economy.

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  2. I am not sure how people of Chicago would respond. While I love the city as a whole, there are people who simply wouldn't have "the time" to put up with this social experiment.

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  3. I am too cynical about America in general to think anything this experimental, though cool sounding as it is, would work. Especially in CHicago which I feel is too proud of its roots as a corrupt city (though whether it is truly more corrupt than any other I cannot say).

    Either way, I love some of what this guy did.

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  4. I agree with the comments above. While theoretically it all seems to make sense, the public will always find a way to take advantage of the system.

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  5. Interesting. Yea Chicago would been a difficult city for this type of thing to exist. But I love the quote you pointed out. Creativity, art, and humor are strong sensitizers! I'm glad we are so versed in the language.

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  6. It is a creative idea for change, but not for Chicago.

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  7. Oh. My. God. Is this in Bogotá, Columbia or New Jersey? My guess is Columbia. Americans would unfortunately destroy this guy in the media if it were to happen in the states. I love that he won! But there is no way it would work anywhere in the states.... well... maybe California or Hawaii... :)

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  8. This is interesting, I agree with everyone else and don't think it would do well in Chicago.

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  9. "Knowledge empowers people. If people know the rules, and are sensitized by art, humor, and creativity, they are much more likely to accept change." - I like that art is becoming a new way of getting people to pay attention.
    Super interesting, but I don't think Chicago would catch on to this idea.

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  10. I really like this idea:
    'giving out "thumbs up"/"thumbs down" cards for citizen to use to pass judgment on fellow citizens' behavior'

    I also don't think this would work in Chicago or most large cities in America because most people are simply afraid to try something new. It's unfortunate, but it's a major groupthink we have going in the majority of this country.

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  11. there is absolutely no way this would work here.

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  12. I feel that one of the reasons that this was so successful was because the state of emotion the city was in. I mean when nothing has worked you will try anything. Also other countries have different values than us. While this is a creative idea and I'm glad it worked, it just would not work in Chicago.

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  13. That is a really cool story! Thanks for sharing. It's really amazing that this worked in a city "choked with violence, lawless traffic, corruption, and gangs of street children who mugged and stole." Sounds like some of those descriptors can be applied to many American cities, but I'm not sure if the similarities between Columbians and Americans are as numerous.

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  14. That is fabulous! It reminds me of the Best Party in Iceland, which singlehandedly restored my faith in humanity.
    http://www.swedishwire.com/nordic/4759-comedian-to-become-mayor-of-iceland-capital

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