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A vending machine that takes a person’s photo and captions it with a coinciding local event; a 2 story house fire on Meridian Ave N, Eating oatmeal in my PJs, gunshots fired N. Broadway. The machine dispenses the participant’s photo with the caption retrieved, connecting them to a neighborhood event. The project investigated hyperlocal communication. We found through neighborhood interviews that neighborhood information was fractured between the digital and physical, conversations at the coffee shop, running into a friend on the street, or a flyer stapled to a telephone pole. How could these two forms of communication, planned and accidental, merge? What new types of communication and exchanges could form?

The project was completed at FUSE Labs, Microsoft Research and piloted in Capitol Hill, Seattle, WA. Completed in collaboration with Erin Smith, Sarah Needham, and Dan Driscoll.