Log in
The project impacts by connecting people with technology through an interactive art project. Portable equipment ensures wide participation: people respond to, and interact with, virtual living creatures in an entertaining but instructive context. Bringing together human participants (able to intervene in the environment) with the virtual bugs (responsive to stimuli/their environment), people are challenged to consider cause and effect in the physical environment as well as their own inter-social relations. The impact which is cultural, imaginative and pedagogic is achieved through touch rather than via the normal emphasis on the communicated world.
This research impacted on two of the most important social and political issues to face western governments: joblessness and homelessness. Twenty photographic images and texts showed and described the circumstances of Big Issue vendors, some rough sleepers and some in temporary accommodation, trying to cope through the worst recession in decades and often feeling ostracized by society. Shown in London and Birmingham and cascaded across the media, it reached a wide audience. The impact of the exhibition and its aftermath consists in alerting and informing viewers/readers concerning the plight of joblessness and homelessness in the UK.