Katrin Ho

Although opportunities for public participation in government decision-making are available to the public, the lack of awareness are a cause of increasingly low levels of participation. This contributes to the prevalent crisis of political disengagement in contemporary western democracies.

Digital affordances, such as networking and coordination foster the organisation of informal collective political actions. Citizens are able to express their thoughts as well as reply and contact government authorities via digital social platforms.

As participation involves bodies and minds, this project entails the development of a novel medium, which translates digital information flows into kinetics in order to raise awareness of current government processes. Tweets, which relate to open online consultations within the General London Assembly, are filtered and mediated as a magnitude of civic energy. With waves being described as means of energy transfer, the civic energy is being translated into the wave amplitude of the sculpture which is positioned in the London City Hall Piazza.

It is the creation of a vital experience through a kinetic sculptural interface – sparking wonder, generating meaning by exhibiting civic and political culture in front of a government building, and gaining a sense of awareness of the proceedings inside London City Hall, which tackles the challenge of fostering civic awareness.