A cabin for communicating, Buzzbox is like a little wooden house -both archetype and prototype – to shelter a collective mode of communication that is simultaneously primordial and futuristic.
A stopping place for urban wayfarers, Buzzbox welcomes visitors and gives them the opportunity to leave messages for others, suggestions that might make the trip more interesting or comfortable: places to visit, places to avoid, urban survival stategies. Impressions, complaints and observations are recorded and inserted in a dynamic map of the city, where zones grow and change their appearance based on the number of pertinent comments. A return to the oral tradition, which thanks to new technologies permits a recovery of the vocal, not just verbal, dimension of communication.
A constantly changing map of emotions, Buzzbox collects personal, authentic, disinterested contributions of users who directly address other users, for a model of human networking that produces information and prevents the wasting of time and energy. The viewpoint of those who experience the city and its places. Individual comments become part of the ‘buzz’, a chorus that offers an overall impression of the emotional state of the city, its inhabitants and its guests.
A mobile container that can be reactivated for any event or location, the Buzzbox was utilized for the first time at the Milan Triennale, during the event inContemporanea Numero Uno. It has the potential to move and multiply, adding the force of interpersonal communications to other projects, adding more and more new voices to the map.
A temporary installation, a permanent project, Buzzbox has a dual identity: visitors can see the physical map and contribute to its transformation by visiting the cabin during the event, but they can also see the results at any time by visiting the website (http://www.buzzbox.it). The map and the recorded vocal comments become documentation that can always be seen on-line, suggesting possible new types of content for a guide “by the city for the city”.
