Hello Lamp Post invites people to strike up playful conversations with familiar city objects using a simple text message system
From lamp posts to bus shelters, parking meters to drains, people ‘wake up’ the city’s street furniture, prompting a set of carefully crafted questions about what people are doing and how they feel about where they live, work and travel.
Is the crane pleased to see you? Irritated at having been left in the rain? Or would it tell you a secret? Each exchange lasts for a few messages – the more people play, the more the hidden life of the city is revealed.
Winner of Watershed’s 2013 Playable City Award
Hello Lamp Post premiered in Bristol in 2013 where 25,000 text messages were sent in just eight weeks. In Aoril 2015, PAN Studio produced Hello Lamp Post Tokyo as part of Roppongi Art Night. You can read more about Watershed Creative Director Clare Reddington’s experience of the visit here. You can also read Ben Barker of PAN Studio‘s reflections on running Hello Lamp Post in different cities: Bristol loves cereal, Tokyo hates doing the dishes, and other lessons from “Hello Lamp Post”.
Hello Lamp Post has also been installed in Manchester, Austin (Texas), Singapore and Bordeaux, Malmo and Astana was nominated as one of the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year 2014.
Hello Lamp Post was developed as a collaboration between PAN Studio, Tom Armitage and Gyorgyi Galik.
Host Hello Lamp Post in your city
Hello Lamp Post is a touring work and is available to host in your city.
To find out more about installation specifications and indicative costs please join the Playable City community and download the Playable City Touring Projects documents.
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