Street Use

Jailhouse Tech


There’s an emerging category of street technology which might be called Jailhouse Tech. The material constraint of a prison inspire fantastic innovation and re-use of made parts. A lot of the devices made in this manner are crude weapons, but others include eating implements, tattoo instruments, music, and other tools. Here are some examples from a prison in Mexico City by Gabriella Gomez-Mont.

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Electric cooking stove made with wire and brick.

From the fantastic interview with the artist who works in this prison and who facilitated the photographer who shot these images:

Now that it is over and done with I can tell you this. For the eight prisoners that helped us it would have easily meant another extra seven years in jail, and for us instant lock-up until they set bail. Especially because of having in our possession—or even presence–those knives made from the metallic edges of the windows!  In there, they menace and kill people with those, we would all gotten into so much trouble if we had been caught with them. I don’t even know if those particular knives that we photographed that day had already been used for some sort of bloody business or not, I preferred not to ask; but it would have been even worse.

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Weapons.

Posted on January 12, 2010 at 9:50 am | comments




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