Description
A project in combination with the Centre for Investigative Journalism to raise awareness about the PFI (Private Finance Initiative) in the UK. PFI is the slow privatisation of the public sector, where institutions such as schools and hospitals can cost millions more to build and keep running than they could without PFI, but we can find these figures in the millions are unrelatable and hard to comprehend. However, when we discovered that one PFI hospital was charged £333 to change a lightbulb, it was quite clear that this cost was extortionate.
'I'm not PFI' looks at these relatable costs and uses design to communicate how PFI works. An interactive light sculpture that uses 148 light bulbs, the amount on average £333 could buy. Divided into 3 rows, with each light representing a PFI project and the length of its cable corresponding to the total repayments it will have to make. A 149th light bulb is placed in the middle, representing PFI as an entity.
The interaction with the sculpture is through a challenge via the user, to either switch on all the lights (the role of the 'goog' guy, working against PFI) or off all the lights (the role of the 'bad' guy, powering PFI) which once complete either turns off or on the central light bulb respectively. A reciept is then printed stating ‘unlucky’ if you worked against PFI or ‘success’ if you helped PFI. The interaction is timed and then uploaded onto the online leaderboard.
At this point in the project, a 1:1 cross section of the structure using fifteen light bulbs spread across three rows. As a prototype, it can demonstrate one complete row of the structure or a cross section of three rows.
I'm not PFI:
Alaa Alsaraji
Shuley Begum
Nicola Bradley
Lucrecia Camiletti
Laura Fontana
