SCENE AROUND: Info Bubbles

Commuters along Route 8 in North Adams, Mass., last summer may have noticed an eight-foot-tall white pod dwarfed by the massive NoAMA mill building, only to realize it had disappeared a year later.

As travelers of Route 9 in Bennington, Vt., now know, it wasn’t a sign of an alien invasion. The sculptural orb, which now resides on the grounds of the historic Bennington Museum, is the prototype of an ION Kiosk, a weatherproof,energy efficient, portable structure that is part exhibition space, part twenty-four-hour digital information portal.

A brainchild of artist Michael Horwitz and architect-archaeologist Donald Sanders, the steel-mesh-and-polyurethane-foam shell contains a touchscreen monitor with a wireless Internet connection and an inkless thermal printer, enabling visitors to consult and print an ever-changing array of community information tailored to the immediate vicinity, such as maps, arts and culture coupons, and restaurant menus. Beyond a large spherical window is gallery space lit by low-power LEDs; exhibits by area artists are swapped out every six weeks or so.

The goal is for the ION Kiosk—whose name is an acronym for “information, orientation, navigation”—to become completely self-sustained via flexible solar paneling, so others like it may exist along nature trails as well as in towns.

“We want the ions to become an eye on that location,” Sanders says, noting the hyper-local trend in news delivery. “The idea is to intrigue people and pull them off the street—and that’s exactly what it does.” [JULY 2010]

THE GOODS

Ion Kiosk
Route 9
Bennington Museum
Bennington, Vt.