Javier Soto

Societies have never been so educated and active and despite the technological revolutions that are reshaping the world, the interaction between citizens and their representatives keeps on being reduced and anachronistic.

During the last years, new tools have appeared with the hope of bringing a closer interaction between citizens and governments, but the potential impact is far from being achieved, as they are used only by certain groups, familiar with its mechanisms.

The 'Onomeos' project explores a system to finally break through and make evident the benefits, whilst engaging the entire spectrum of society.

First, it embeds different tools under the same open-source platform, to deliver the information in a simple way, and facilitate the interaction.

Second, it proposes a set of avatars to interact with this platform, with different solutions becoming portholes to the Onomeos System, allowing tailored tools that are conformed to fit the different targets.

Designed to raise awareness, customised to fit the cultural peculiarities, these avatars will use design to intrigue the citizens and let them place themselves in the decision-making situation of the politicians. The first of them is an installation, which aims to engage people and create a landmark, a symbol, which acts as a window to the platform.

In the future, other portals will sequentially be added, from political toys to real time feedback about decisions, all of them linked to a single platform in order to get the active and informed engagement of every citizen.