Photo by Simon Hare Photography

As a part of the UnConvention, a sideshow to the Republican National Convention, next week Miami artist Steven Gagnon will drive his sculptural contraption to the Twin Cities and park it in a public spot near Intermedia Arts, a sponsor of the festivities. Gagnon’s “border cruiser” calls attention to the experience of undocumented people in the U.S. (This week, it will be on view curbside in Denver for the Democratic National Convention. See video below.)

The unconventional project is part of a “series of non-partisan citywide programs around the theme of participatory democracy through art, education and journalism,” geared around the political conventions. The vehicle is just one of many politically minded exhibitions and events that also includes other remade forms of transportation. (Go here for a full schedule of events.)

Once a detective’s car, the cruiser, an all-white Ford Crown Victoria, retains its former glory with a black wraparound stripe and tongue-in-cheek markings that read, “To project and present” and “projection vehicle.” However, the real spectacle comes from inside the multimedia car/installation: It is furnished with several digital projectors that play video footage, providing the kinds of details you won’t find in an incident report.

From the back seat, a Brazilian man’s image flashes life-size across the rear windows, while his narration comes through the roof-mounted speakers — fixtures that bear a striking resemblance to sirens and lights. The immigrant, who has been taken into custody, tells the story of what brought him to the U.S. and the difficulties he has faced since then. (Cool back-story: Gagnon bought the car from a Brazilian woman whose work permit had expired.)

One of the biggest challenges of the project, Gagnon says, was to pull it off legally — avoiding any kind of official police car branding. Even so, the traffic-stopping installation isn’t immune to scrutiny. When taking pictures of the finished product, Gagnon was questioned by police who responded to 911 calls about a fake police car. The cops then stayed close for the remainder of the photo shoot, so as to prevent additional calls. On the other hand, “it gives you a sense of authority even though you have none,” he chuckled, noting that fellow drivers always stick to the speed limit around him.

Gagnon, who comes from a long line of auto mechanics, similarly revamped a New York City taxicab into a mini theater. In “Eins Werden,” which combines equal parts West German-manufactured Mercedes Benz and East German Trabant, he portrays the reunification of Germany, while another piece uses a 1930s Ford to describe his origins. “A lot of my work has dealt with who and what is an American? Who am I as an American?” said Gagnon, who comes from an immigrant family. “I want to raise awareness and provide more dignity to these people who many perceive as second-class citizens. This is a way I can give a different perspective.”

In February, the New York City Law Department subpoenaed Tad Hirsch, an M.I.T. doctoral candidate who wrote the code for TxtMob, an SMS application used by many, including reporters — and, possibly, police — during RNC04. Lawyers representing 62 people arrested during the protests are seeking to reveal the contents — including senders and recipients — of a (virtual) mountain of text messages. Hirsch says he won’t comply — and that he no longer has the nearly four-year-old-data. His lawyer says the request is “overbroad” and a violation of the First Amendment, while Hirsch offered assurances to TxtMob users on his website “that I take their privacy seriously, and that I am taking what actions I can to protect their civil liberties.”

Katrin Verclas, urging readers of the Personal Democracy Forum to donate to Hirsch’s legal fund, calls the move “a blow to privacy and a chilling development to activists.”

Local tech blogger Ed Kohler agrees that the subpoena, if complied with, could chill dissent here, but adds that since Hirsch’s software is open-source and available as a free download, activists could easily create an anonymized version, hosted elsewhere. “I’m sure they could find someone in the world who’d be out of the reach of the St. Paul Police Department,” he told me. (Or, as a commenter at Slashdot suggested, “They cannot subpoena logs that you don’t keep.”)

And he sees no problem with that: Hirsch created a tool for communication and shouldn’t be punished for how it is used. “It’s no different than creating the phone system,” Kohler said. “He’s just providing a platform that people are using in a variety of ways, mainly, from the looks of it, just to keep in touch with each other. It’s like creating a private-label Twitter network.”

Which is where the beer comes in.

Because plants move vapor from their roots and release it through their leaves, a green roof on a two-car garage can “sweat” five gallons of water on a hot day  — enough to fill 57 bottles of Ireland’s finest.

Zoll and RoofBloom‘s Chris Wegsheid were among 13 groups presenting ideas at the first edition of Solutions Twin Cities, a networking event/show-and-tell session/progressive social, organized by Colin Kloecker, a blogger at Worldchanging Twin Cities who works at Cermak Rhoades Architects, and Troy Gallas, a member of Architecture for Humanity – Minnesota. Intended to showcase change-oriented projects in design, ecology, community development, and culture, Solutions takes its format from pecha kucha, a presentation format developed in Japan in which each each speaker gets 20 seconds to discuss each of 20 slides. As Worldchanging’s Eric Larson aptly wrote, it’s “no guff, no fluff, just the essence of the ideas.”

While Zoll and Wegscheid fabricated a 3 x 4-foot section of roof, others used their time to discuss “future-positive creativity” ideas ranging from alternative currency systems and sustainable communities in Kenya and Uganda to Urban Earth, a new flower shop in southwest Minneapolis that’s one of the country’s only non-food-based co-operatives. For example:
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