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Granting & Denying Authority

Who has the right to deny or grant access to this park bench? And what are the costs, to whom, if it is still used?

Hop, skip and jump ahead to a world of small, widely distributed, and digitally connected physical infrastructures - how to communicate whether something is out of order? Again, who will have the right to grant or deny access? How will this be communicated? And given the differences in personal, cultural and contextual attitudes to dis-respecting/respecting authority what will it take so that like this park bench, it cannot be ignored?

In an world of personal ubiquitous communication devices, geopositioning and distributed reputations, what would it take to identify, commission and 'deputise' a nearby person to have the authority to enforce the 'out of usedness' of infrastructure? How to communicate this new authority? And how will enterprising locals on the ground game the system to first threaten and then protect the infrastructure in question?

So much to look forward to.

Incidentally this bench is one of three typically used by the numerous long term homeless gents living in my local park - a row of blue tarp sits about 10 meters from where this was taken. A bench to the left includes a small stack of manga signalling a sense of ownership over the bench space.

Writing from Komazawa Koen | July 22, 2007 | Permalink