Technology for Democracy
Technology should be an instrument for social movements. Those people that have no voice, or only a very small voice, need support and assistance in order to be better heard. Technology should not only serve to maintain current political power structures. Technology can also help to break through those power structures.
- The idea behind the Demo Camp Units is to offer relevant technology, i.e. tools, for people who want to make their arguments heard. A crew from Landbouwbelang used the Demo Camp units to do just that, display their arguments for all to see. People along the route of the OVSE-demonstration, as well as people on television could watch it.
DEMOnstrating and CAMPing: a multi-purpose unit
How to make the parts for the DemoCamp-units
How to make demo camp units
A lightweight portable display tower to show banners and posters, high over the heads of the crowd, so they can be seen from a long distance. The display can be assembled in any shape and size from modular construction elements: bamboo sticks and metal cross wires. The demonstrators can do this on the spot of the demonstration. Sticks [2,2 m long] and steel diagonal wires make up the structure of prisms and blocks, which can be connected to form all kinds of shapes. When the sides are covered, as with a tent, with plastic film with slogans written on them, the potential of "demonstrative camping" is born. Four people can sleep in each unit, it is tall enough for a person to stand. Constructed not as a prism but as a block it can be used as a temporary office. Such shelters can also be used for emergencies with the use of heat-insulating film behind the plastic cover. Bamboo is the ideal material to use for the sticks. It’s lightweight, which allows the towers to be carried around by three people, each holding a corner. The towers have so little mass that toppling over is no real danger. The metal wires used as cross wires in the construction are thin. They can be acquired when cut from car tires. |
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