The city is constantly telling us what to do, what to think, and how to act. Using explicit visual language, a multiplicity of billboards, signs, images and symbols invade our public spaces in order to tell us something. "YOUR TEXT HERE" is a project that challenges this condition: Citizens are given the opportunity to change their role as receivers of information in order become the authors. The way it works is simple: you submit an anonymous text message in a website through your mobile phone, and in turn it is automatically projected at large scale onto the façade of a building.
"Public space is not something that is given or inherited, it must be fought for and defended constantly"
Txt. Marcos Zotes.
"YOUR TEXT HERE" is a participatory, site-specific light installation that aims at empowering local communities by providing a tool that transforms people voices into citizen proclamations the size of buildings. The project was performed as part of DLECTRICTY, an outdoors light art festival in midtown Detroit that took place during October 5th and 6th, 2012. The façade of a large heat production plant was transformed into a giant display board that reflected the variety of voices existent in the area. During two nights, thousands of citizens gathered in the street as a community, where they publicly shared their feelings, identities, secrets, criticism, wisdom, support, advice, and frustrations. More than 1,000 anonymous text messages were submitted. Each of them was projected for about 10 to 20 seconds on a loop across the entire event. The space became an arena for debate, a catalyst for social interaction.
