How often do you see street safety signs that not only inform, but also entertain? A very interesting new project by artist John Morse is seeing street sign like images placed around the streets of New York, each featuring a catchy haiku about staying safe as a pedestrian or cyclist.
The small square images, placed at eye level around the city, use pictogram like figures and either a printed haiku beneath or QR code to draw in passerby and entertainingly inform. “Poetry has a lot of power,” Morse recently told NPR’s Scott Simon. “If you say to people: ‘Walk.’ ‘Don’t walk.’ Or, ‘Look both ways.’ If you can tweak it just a bit — and poetry does that — the device gives these simple words power.”
Morse designed 12 of the signs to be installed in high-crash locations near cultural institutions and schools: 10 signs in english and 2 in spanish. The series, installed by the New York Department of Transportation and titled “Curbside Haiku” can be seen in 144 locations around the 5 Boroughs. You can find more on John Morse, including his previous project Roadside Haiku, at stardogstudio.com.
Cyclist writes screenplay
Plot features bike lane drama
How pedestrian
Oncoming cars rush
Each a 3-ton bullet.
And you, flesh and bone.
Cars crossing sidewalk:
Worst New York City hotspot
To run into friends
A sudden car door,
Cyclist’s story rewritten.
Fractured narrative
Car stops near bike lane
Cyclist entering raffle
Unwanted door prize
Imagine a world
Where your every move matters.
Welcome to that world.
Puerta del coche
Se abre al ciclista.
Un freno duro
Aggressive driver.
Aggressive pedestrian.
Two crash test dummies.
She walks in beauty
Like the night. Maybe that’s why
Drivers can’t see her.
Too averse to risk
To chance the lottery, yet
Steps into traffic
Coches ciegos
Comunicarse en Braille.
Remate brutal.
8 million swimming,
The traffic rolling like waves.
Watch for undertow.
Via: npr.org
