Demo Camp Units (english)
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Technology for Democracy
True democracy needs some help from technology. Democracy is about making your arguments heard, also when your arguments differ from mainstream ideas. Or worse, when the media are used for propaganda by ruling groups. Technology should give backing to people who differ with the official policy.
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Reasons for the use of demo camp units
Organizing a demonstration for a social purpose is an enormous task. But is has little effect of transferring the message to the public that watch on the pavement or after their TV's. Banners carried on sticks can not be read, chants can not understood. Demonstrators are dependent on media reporters in the message that comes across to the public. A better tool is needed, cheap and easy to make and effective Demonstrators may need shelter during the night or in case of bad or hot wether. Such shelter should be part of the system of getting the message across, not an extra organizational task. Demonstrations are seldom welcomed by police and public that oppose the demonstration. It should never be a concern to loose the demonstrating materials. In a turmoil this demo-material may not create hazards for demonstrators or public. |
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How to make demo camp units
A lightweight portable display tower to show banners and posters, high over the heads of the crowd, so they can be seen from a long distance. The display can be assembled in any shape and size from modular construction elements: bamboo sticks and metal cross wires. The demonstrators can do this on the spot of the demonstration. Sticks [2,2 m long] and steel diagonal wires make up the structure of prisms and blocks, which can be connected to form all kinds of shapes. When the sides are covered, as with a tent, with plastic film with slogans written on them, the potential of "demonstrative camping" is born. Four people can sleep in each unit, it has the height to stand, constructed not as a prism but as a block it can be used as a temporary office. Such shelters can also be used for emergencies with the use of heat-insulating film behind the plastic cover. Bamboo is the ideal material to use for the sticks. Its light weight allows the towers to be carried around by three people, each holding a corner. The towers have so little mass, that toppling over is no real danger. The metal wires used as cross wires in the construction are thin. They can eventually be acquired when cut from car tires. |
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How to make the parts for the DemoCamp-unitsMake sticks, crosswires, banner clamps and sheets for DemoCamp-units To make these parts is not difficult, but accurate work! Beware! Sloppy work at this stage may result in the shamefull collapse of towers and constructions at the time of a demonstration that would otherwise be glorious effective. If you are not sure, make materials for one single prisma unit, overload it and see if or how it collapses. Then see that your work was good enough or if you could have done something better.
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