Unauthorized Repairs is an ongoing series of object-based interventions that explore the tension between the intended and actual uses of public urban spaces.

For one such project, I targeted derelict bicycles, headless parking meter poles, and empty payphone enclosures; objects that are familiar to the city-dweller, though only as a marker of some lost or obsolescent function. Next, I created simple paper models of these missing devices, and installed them in their original public context. These inert replacement parts exchanged an old function for a new one: to inspire conversation about the shifting role of the public landscape, and the way that communal spaces often fail to keep up with the evolving needs of a community.

The value of a digital device is inversely proportional to its age—with time, computers, cell phones, printers, and more become less useful as they are replaced by more advanced versions of themselves. These devices are often still operable, only losing their function conceptually, relative to our expectations of modern technology. Compare this to functional, non-digital objects, like a plow or a sword, that can retain their value as long as the core function remains. As the use of digital tools grows to obscure all else in the popular notion of technology, we can observe a shift in the way that devices are valued in relationship to their age (regardless of whether or not they still function).