War hier

An information system in
public space.

Concept, technical demo,
presentational DVD

By
Dirk Dassow, Alex Fuchs,
Hendrik Möller, Steffen
Schuhmann, Maria Schwabe,
and myself.

Advised by Prof. Alex Jordan

Spring 2005

The concept is currently in
political planning stage for implementation in 2008.

The Berlin district Prenzlauer Berg was home and cultural center for thousands of citizens and immigrants of jewish heritage or belief. This culture was completely destroyed by the Nazis and their supporters. Today, there are only few traces of the life that took place there until the late thirties.

The Bezirksamt (Municipal District Bureau) Pankow asked Weißensee - School of Art to develop a concept to make these traces visible again and to offer information about the lifes of the people that lived there during this time.

During our work on this project, we developed the idea for a system of stations that are activated by RFID chips, which would be enclosed in the cover of a city guide, to trigger multimedial information (films, photos, sound) directly at the places where the informations apply to. This appearing of the information seemingly out of nothing makes it elusive, out of reach, untouchable to vandalism (sadly still a necessity in Berlin) and connects to the vanishing and eradication of an entire part of the life of the city.

The ability to program the chips would also allow to offer information specifically suited for the user.