Interactive consultancy Pan Studio is to install the Hello Lamp Post! project in Bristol, UK, which will see people ‘communicate’ with street furniture such as lamp-posts and bus-stops by texting a unique code found on the objects.
The project adapts existing codes which are used by the city council to tell one object from another when a light-bulb needs replacing or a bus-stop repairing. Now members of the public will be able to use these codes to ‘play’ with the objects.
Every post box in Bristol has been given a six-figure code, every bollard has two, some benches have seven and the storm drains have 14. If someone text the object’s code to a special phone number, it will ‘reply’ with a question.
The organisers say, ‘Will it be pleased to see you? Irritated at having been left in the rain? Or will it tell you a secret? The more you play, the more the hidden life of the city will be revealed’.