Where space is carved up to accommodate for the automobile’s demand for passage, little is left for pedestrians to experience, see, or do. On December 13, a group of M.Sc. students studying sustainability science at Lund University in Sweden sought to tackle this problem by means of direct action – by recreating Prof. Hermann Knoflacher’s ‘walkmobile’ (see Carbusters #36). Of the myriad of reasons why widespread automobile use is unsustainable, Knoflacher adds that the automobile hijacks public space in urban and suburban settings. Knoflacher’s walk- mobile fills 450 cm by 180 cm, the dimensions of a midsize car, and attempts, with added humour, to demonstrate every pedestrian’s right to equal space as granted to the automobile.
The students toured the streets with the walkmobile, engaging in what certain observers of culture-jamming have called “critical public pedagogy”. While not trying to be explicitly educational or academic, the students tried to engage onlookers while one student even played the role of the mad scientist inventor of the walkmobile. However, more than purely attention grabbing or building awareness, the aim was to get people to reflect on the collective effect of individual behavioural choices. The public demonstration created a collective learning experience: engaging the audience to question the dominant perception of cars, which, in our society, has become deeply embedded in individual identities.
Continuing this culture-jamming theme, the students have created a mock automobile corporation website, inspired by the French theorist Guy De- bord, thus using the fake auto company name: Bord Motors. By Ahoo Salem, Cary Hendrick- son, Fabrizio Trocchia and Hitesh Soneji
