Street Art News & Swap Box Video

Man, my internet has been on the fritz for about a week and a half now, and it's been a total bitch. The worst part is that it's sorta-working, so I've been spending a lot of time and energy (and lack of sleep) trying to get it working smoothly. Having to deal with the ISP hasn't exactly been smooth either.

Anyway, my internet seems to be about 80% stable, so I can finally get back to getting stuff done.

High up on the list was checking out Slashdot, and running into this article on tweenbots.

Tweenbots are a little artistic experiment by New Yorker Kacie Kinzer. It's a little robot that travels in a straight line, which depends on strangers orienting it in the proper direction to get to the destination on a flag it carries. Surprisingly the Tweenbot survived each test, despite NYC's notoriety for traffic, crime, and other natural Tweenbot predators.


Naturally, I took the opportunity to post a comment about Ottawa's Swap boxes on the Slashdot article, and in looking for the best URL to link, discovered some news on El Maks' Swap Box Project Blog. For one, he's responded to my question about what to do with the Annoying Protester Kit (namely, he doesn't have any good ideas either and is also looking for suggestions).

But more importantly, he posted a link to Jadis' Swap Box mini-documentary, which is awesome. (ProTip: pause at the fast montages and double-click the pause/play button to advance a few frames forward to see the photos)

Toward the end of the video, you can see El Maks make the swap box currently on Elgin. I first posted about this one at the end of my post Street Art Rescue #3 - Elgin Flower Box Rebuild.

Not visible in the photo on that post is the adorable little Mayor Larry Cupid on the left side of the box:

As always, I try to keep interesting stuff in my pocket to leave in swap boxes to exchange for other people's garbage. But despite El Maks mentioning the word "accessible" in the voiceover when this box is displayed in the video, I've noticed that you have to be quite tall to use this particular box (an unintentional irony, I'm sure). That, combined with it being on Elgin Street, leaves it frequently filled with condoms (unopened, thankfully)...

Or freaky April snow:

As for the flower box, it has disappeared. Making way for something new and better, perhaps!

Help keep street art alive--support your local swap box!

- RG>