Projects Desluz and ZN:PRDM (Neutral Zone: a River Passes Through Me) by Poéticas Digitais Group Gilbertto Prado ECA/USP University of São Paulo / PPG Design University Anhembi Morumbi. São Paulo, Brazil gttoprado@gmail.com Abstract The purpose of this communication is to present some recent projects developed by the Poéticas Digitais group related to the theme of environment and flow, visible and invisible forces, and how to dialog with the construction of the context, in which the public is part of a large collaborative system related to the envi- ronment. The discussed projects are: “Desluz” (2010) and “ZN:PRDM – Zona Neutra: Passa um Rio Dentro de Mim (Neu- tral Zone: A River Passes Through Me)” from 2013. Keywords media art, environment, dowsing, flow, Poeticas Digitais Introduction: Experience and Belonging To live is go from one space to another, trying insofar as possible to not bump into things. 1 Georges Perec (1974, p. 14) How does one make the various vectors and forces that make up our cross and circulations appear, even if we do not notice them? And how to compose with them? Some layers may seem interesting to overlap. The first would be the layer of signs that are apparent and that guide flows. The second layer, the mapping of paths, signs or situations that are not so evident in our metropolises, which cross them from underneath or at different frequencies and are less noticeable. This type of interest also guides some of the work by the Poéticas Digitais Group 2 , such as the “Desluz” and “Amoreiras” projects (Prado, 2010a), in which we have flows and movements that are not in our visible or audible tracks and frequencies but that affect us in some way. In the same line of conception of these pro- jects is the ZN:PRDM (Neutral Zone: A River Flows In- side of Me) that also poetically explores these tracks and 1 Vivre c’est passer d’un espace à l’autre, en essayant le plus 2 The Poéticas Digitais group was created in 2002 at the Visual Arts Department at ECA-USP as a multidisciplinary group to promote the development of experimental projects and a reflection on the impact of new technologies in the field of arts. The group is an unfolding of the wAwRwT project started by Gilbertto Prado in 1995 and its participants are artists, researchers and students, with vary in each project. (Prado, 2010b) frequencies using antennas to neutralize energy, forked sticks to find water and mobile phones to reconstruct un- derground river routes. The projects are a starting point in revealing the current relationships with the city, some of which are crystallized, and to eventually generate the po- tential to destabilize the subject of conventional move- ments and routes following the paths. Through art and digital systems in public areas, we can design new experiences in relation to the cities and our surroundings. In this manner, the intention is to encourage the interest, use, sense of belonging, and dialog in public areas, not only in parks and the usual places of leisure, but in all areas in general. Actions like these also intend to make streets a venue not only for functional moving, that is, to commute from one place to another, but for interac- tions without previous guidance. The presence of technologies in areas subject to traffic has produced a new type of temporality and sociability. They have created a new way to perceive these areas and move across them. We generate an invisible and immateri- al mesh after crossing electronic and digital technologies in these areas – no longer considered strange objects, but in- corporated into the area itself. In Paris: Ville Invisible/Paris: invisible city (Latour & Hermant, 1998) the authors show in text and image a per- spective of these invisible meshes that cross the subsoil and the air of the cities. Data are provided by sensors in- stalled in the urban areas, with remotely located monitor- ing rooms. Safety cameras are installed to monitor the traf- fic, traffic lights, telephone transmissions, water volume in dams, sewage, airplanes, etc. Everything required to keep the city functioning and in supposedly stable conditions. In the project Rivers & Streets, (Campos Junior, 2013), the author develops a process for the rivers that have been canalized and are hidden in the city of São Paulo. Many rivers and streams that, being concealed and out of our daily lives, are in a type of non-existent state as they are not in our field of vision and perception. Well, these con- trolled or uncontrolled systems are only noticed when they become defective or when catastrophes, natural phenome- na or interventions occur that affect their – and our - rou- tine. It should be noted that all these new processes, that at- test to the presence and influence of information and com-