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locamoda’s wiffiti screens are large public displays to which passersby can send messages via SMS. the screens are mounted in public places like cafes, restaurants, and increasingly workplaces. recently wiffiti screens have begun to serve a political role: they are mounted in (among other places) barack obama’s springfield IL campaign headquarters, hillary clinton’s albany NY headquarters and the recent yearlykos convention. in the cafe context i have watched the wiffiti screen at my local coffee shop toscanini’s get steady use, especially when it goes into a ‘game mode’ and strangers in the same room start a heated word-game competition (without acknowledging each other). it’s not nearly as obnoxious as a big screen TV usually is, but it’s not exactly a portrait of democracy either: every screen is censored and the ones used behind political candidates as they speak are as open as the youtube presidential debates. the main contributions seem to be the ability to send a message to a place, not a person, and the implicit definition of graffiti as the voice of the public.
. Leo is a artist, inventor and all around practical person in the Tangible Media Group at the Media Lab. He has a background in sculpture, architecture and industrial design as well as an MS from the Media Lab spent working on the kitchen of the future. He is on a search for truth.
