Auto-Complain

Every cyclist hates potholes in the streets. But complaining about them via the official channels can be extremely time-consuming and annoying because bureaucracy often leads to a dead end. Auto-Complain offers the possibility to automate the act of demanding road renovations by using a simple app. All you need to do is attach your phone onto your bike to track its motions. When hitting a bigger pothole, your phone registers the intensity and location of the bump. This data is directly sent to and stored on an online platform (auto-complain.com). Upon arrival at your destination, your complain ride is completed and a PDF file summarizing all of your complaints is sent to the road repairs department. Another feature is a spray device, which is mounted on your bike. As soon as you ride over a pothole, the spray device leaves a mark on the pothole to alert other cyclists.

This app is mounted onto your bicycle like a cyclocomputer or navigation device. If it senses potholes in the road while you are moving, it marks those spots requiring repair with a spray and then can log and announce the location to the authorities. The work was entered into the festival in the “application” category and, while indeed at its core is an app for an iPhone mounted onto a bicycle, the work itself goes beyond this into the spheres of gadgetry, websites, communities, and politics. It is a superb example of how an app is not necessarily always something that fits inside a display or device. (KUBOTA Akihiro)