Public spaces are vital to the life and vitality of cities. From the ancient Greek agora, public spaces have been valued for their role in bringing diverse people together — to gather, to share a common space — and to create a sense of belonging.
Governments and private sector developers recognise how valuable vibrant public spaces are to the creation of successful new precincts: precincts people want to belong to, spend money in, travel to, make homes in.
Even with the rise of pervasive digital technology, people have still chosen to gather together in public spaces. The coronavirus of 2020 has reminded us of the enduring desire to connect, even when we must be physically distant, in outdoor spaces.. We've only truly adopted virtual modes of connectivity when forced inside by the threat of a global pandemic.
STORYBOX is public space media
We've created STORYBOX because we want to facilitate a different kind of media in our shared public spaces. We're pretty used to outdoor media, but we think outdoor media could do more to share diverse perspectives.
So we're creating something a bit different. STORYBOX uses the outdoor space of the public square to curate and program different portals of place. We call this 'public space media'. Yes we think it deserves its own special name.
Unlike television, which you watch from the comfort of your home, public space media is meant primarily to be experienced outdoors, often incidentally. That's why there's usually no sound in the media we curate and publish. Unlike mobile content, what we show is also meant not just for you to click and scroll through, but as something that might catch your eye accidentally, perhaps make you smile as you're walking around.
Being in public means we aims to connect with a huge diversity of people. We curate content that contributes to the amenity of a place, and hopefully encourages people who see it to think a little differently about the space they're in.
Being all about public space media is also why we approached the ABC to partner with us as an Anchor Content Partner. The ABC is one of Australia's public service broadcasters, and for many decades has existed as a kind of 'town square' of public life in Australia. As media continues to become more and more integrated into the life and experience of public spaces, via mobile and immersive media platforms, we thought it was worth exploring what role the ABC can play in public space media.
We are thrilled the ABC has joined us as an Anchor Partner for STORYBOX PARRAMATTA and look forward to sharing the unique content and insights they're gathering for the project. You can learn more about the STORYBOX ABC Partnership here.
We do this because we don't think its necessarily so good that everyone publishes their creative works for free on a platform like Instagram, making Mark Zuckerberg rich, but not the people who contribute the content. We think people will look back and wonder why so many people did that.
STORYBOX is for better public spaces.
For better cities and communities.
And for better futures.
We hope you like it.