Carolyn Stanley A sticker for the Barcode Cinema project, one of the walkable exhibits at the Conflux Festival.

The East Village became a technological playground of sorts this weekend: an 8-foot tall “Urban Speaker” received phone calls and broadcast them across Tompkins Square Park. Images of bustling city sidewalks flickered across an outdoor movie screen attached to the handball court fence near Avenue B. Custom-designed barcode stickers were affixed to street signs, lampposts and buildings.

A mix of events, activities, and installations were dispersed throughout the neighborhood, all part of Conflux, an experiment in psychogeography, demonstrating how changing the urban landscape impacts people. Established in 2003, the Conflux Festival is an annual art and technology exhibition, and this year, most of the festival’s 75 projects appeared in the East Village. Exhibitors were encouraged to position their projects within a walkable radius, so they could explore how a community responds to participatory art.
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