 |
|
A woman
chooses a short story at a short-story distribution terminal in the Mistral
district of Grenoble © Jean-Perre Clatot / AFP
|
The
innovation-friendly Green party mayor of Grenoble, Eric Piolle, has ordered
eight vending machines to be placed in the heart of the city that will dispense
literary short stories to pedestrians for free at the push of a button.
The
big orange terminals have three options – stories of 1, 3 or 5 minutes – that
are printed out on thin recycled paper reminiscent of a lengthy shopping bill
and can be tucked into a wallet.
“The
idea came to us in front of a vending machine containing chocolate bars and
drinks. We said to ourselves that we could do the same thing with good quality
popular literature to occupy these little unproductive moments,” Christophe
Sibieude, a digital publisher who pitched the idea to the city council, told
AFP.
 |
|
Print out of the chosen short story comes out within minutes at a short-story distribution terminal in the Mistral
district of Grenoble © Jean-Perre Clatot / AFP
|
Sibieude
already runs a successful literary smartphone app called Short Edition that has
over 140,000 subscribers who will both read and write their own stories for the
printouts.
The
idea would have been impossible, however, without the input of the mayor – a
dashing 42-year-old business-executive-turned-environmentalist. With a
population of over 150 thousand, Grenoble is the largest French city to entrust
itself to a Green politician.
“We
are trying to re-imagine the city center as a place of shared experiences,”
Piolle said to AFP. “We are trying to launch a revolution, and the objective is
to build a wider and calmer downtown area.”
Piolle
has made international headlines several times since his election for
controversial decisions, such as ordering that all street advertising be banned
from the city center and replaced with trees and hedges. He has also cut the
speed limit inside the city to 30 km/h and introduced more pedestrian spaces.
 |
|
Lots of
excitement happening around the #Lacuna at the @BayBookFest! Grab some free books!
|
Several
initiatives, such as turning popular shopping streets into bike lanes, have met
with severe opposition from local traders, who believe his plans could drive
business away from the city center.
Although
Piolle’s book dispenser plan is innovative, similar stunts to promote reading
have already been attempted in other, usually more cosmopolitan, urban centers.
Toronto’s Public Library has created pop-up kiosks offering free books at busy
train stations, while in California an art collective built a structure out of
50,000 books, which could then be taken away by visitors. By the end of the
exhibition, titled Lacuna, almost none remained.
But
Short Edition hopes its invention will be more than a one-off.
“We are getting a lot of
requests from all over the world for this invention. Once we will sort out our
costs, we will ship these machines anywhere – for maybe a month, several months
or even for a few years,” Quentin Pleple, one of Short Edition’s founders, told
RT.
No comments :
Post a Comment