That bright yellow metal sunflower seen at the bottom of the photo is a welcome presence in playgrounds around the city. It is both microphone and speaker. You can talk to someone on the other end, another metal sunflower buried deep (can you find it?) in the play structure. Doing so requires learning not only sleuthing but social coordination. You need to sense when to switch from listening to speaking and back again. It’s too bad the city’s recreation department does not also provide links between playgrounds. Then again it’s quite hot right now in Northern California, which means it’s quite foggy and cold in San Francisco’s Richmond District. At 7:15 this morning you could barely see two blocks ahead. At that moment this felt like the only playground in the city, a playground in the clouds.
An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.