Mobility Town

Out of Our Cars and Into the World

About the Project ABOUT THE ARTISTS RESOURCES “PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION IS FREEDOM” Essay CONTACT US

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Robot Designer Carla Diana and Projection Mapping Artist Motomichi Nakamura feel the pain of living in private car-dependent cities and know that there can be a better way. They’re teaming up  to create a whimsical, interactive playground populated by animated characters that illustrate what a future of publicly accessible mobility in Detroit might feel like. Based at Michigan Central and including popup outdoor events, “MOBILITY TOWN: Out of Our Cars and Into the World” will invite people to discover magical spaces where walls, benches, columns and other building structures are transformed into an imagined city that thrives on a culture of pedestrian-friendly communities. The work will be workshopped and prototyped with Cranbrook Academy of Art’s Interaction Design Department and based on research that explores shared, networked mobility innovations like modular trains that run on “software rails”, shuttles to serve workplaces and cultural institutions, and other mixed, flexible transportation modes. The installations invite us to dream about an alternate future where community-focused transportation can enable more of the “intricate ballet” of life on the street that urban design theorist Jane Jacobs famously wrote about.

Artist Statement

Moving to Detroit in 2018, my thoughts about Americans’ unfortunate lack of transportation choices reached a crescendo. I knew that car ownership in the US is an idea that few people questioned. In Motown, people reveled in it. But it never stopped feeling like a set of frustrating circumstances that were fundamentally wrong. As exciting as it was to witness Detroit's urban renaissance, I craved pedestrians, sidewalks, and serendipitous encounters with friends.

Meanwhile, as a designer collaborating with some of academia’s leading experts in robotics and autonomy, I’ve gotten excited about the potential for a brand new approach to public transportation through shared, connected, autonomous vehicles. Instead of the status quo, we can band together to support an accessible system that serves everyone and gets us out of our cars and into communities that will thrive with more pedestrian traffic. The key to this future is people pushing against the auto industry’s vision of private car ownership to demand something bigger and better. This project uses art and design to explore that message through playful media-based installations that demonstrate the idea of shared resources as a way to build community and care for one another.

This project is being developed in conjunction with award-winning projection mapping artist and animator Motomichi Nakamura, a long time professional friend, collaborator and former colleague. The work will also include input from workshops conducted with 4D/Interaction Design graduate students at Cranbrook Academy of Art, where I am Department Head and Artist in Residence.

- Carla Diana

the project aims to:

• Illustrate at the potential for a new transportation experience from a primarily human point of view, as opposed to a business and technology perspective, emphasizing the value for social interaction and communities.

• Synthesize visions around the future of technology into a clear story that deciphers technology into layperson’s terms while also revealing some of the kinds of systems structures that would make it possible.

• Tell the story of the potential for public transportation evolution through the lens of the city of Detroit.

As a response to the damage that has been done to cities and communities across the globe over may decades, this project offers alternative visions that illustrate the power of the symbiotic relationship between public spaces and transportation services.

Ideally, the project can serve to instigate change and encourage people to inspire others around them to join in a collective quest to seek better transportation systems in our own neighborhoods.