Antwerp was World Book City in 2004. This event made us wonder how we could involve Antwerp citizens in writing literature by using a very popular new media tool such as mobile phones.
In 2004 over 70 % of the Belgians had a mobile phone and 65% of them sent text messages regularly. They used them to their lives. Text messages were easily sent around to say hello, to fix a meeting, to gossip and even flirt.
But ‘STADSchromosmen‘ (CITYchromosomes), wanted to use them differently and invited all visitors and citizens of Antwerp to use mobile texting in a creative way by taking part in writing a biography of the city.
‘STADSchromosomen’ was a network of 25 ‘text points’ around Antwerp and its districts, each inviting the citizen or visitor to submit their impression about that place as a text message. A new view on the city by her citizens/visitors emerged from these impressions.
A selection of the submitted impressions was retrievable at the text points, around the city, in the media and on the website. You could also read an impression written by somebody else simply by texting the key number displayed at each text point and you could react on an impression via the website.
A first selection of impressions was written during a series of creative writing workshops held in venues across the city. This selection played a crucial role in the first phase of ‘STADSchromosomen’. They were the first invitations to citizens and visitors to join in and write a part of the new ‘city biography’ in SMS-style.
Six months later a selection of the submitted impressions were compiled in a booklet and gave an alternative view on Antwerp and its districts. Since the ‘text points’ were chosen in such a way that practically all social layers of the city were connected with one another, this publication gave a colourful overview of Antwerp and its districts. It was the first book in Belgium published under Creative Commons license.
‘STADSchromosomen’ twinned with CityPoems in Leeds, on several occasions both projects interlinked with each other and thus confronted two ‘city views’ with one another.
Download the final book:
Some remaining press coverage:
Stefan Kolgen 