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If you recall, the project was dreamt up as a creative forum that would allow concerned citizens of the world to voice their thoughts and opinions to the Leaders of the G20 Summit. We felt that the project would demonstrate Pittsburgh’s innovative spirit and create an endearing memory in the minds and hearts of the G-20 delegates, whom we knew would be under tight security in the Convention Center.

As we created the project, we became increasingly worried that the US Secret Service would force us to shut down the project, an eventuality for which we were prepared but wished to avoid. To prevent a premature shutdown, we imagined all the ways the project could potentially be hijacked by either unreasonable people or terrorists, and we began taking measures to ensure that wouldn’t happen.

We never received a call from the City, the Police, or the Secret Service. Surprisingly, we instead received a call from our landlord, who received a letter from our neighbor. The letter though professional in tone, was in fact a threat. The company that sent it took the position that allowing us to run the art project during the G-20 would increase the risk of causing damage for which the landlord and Elliance would have to assume liability. Their assumption was that the art installation would draw un-necessary attention to our building and activists could potentially end up using our building as a medium to draw media attention to their cause. The increase in risk to our building was something the company was unwilling to bear and would pass on to us.

On the surface, their argument seemed plausible. However, a deeper examination of the facts painted a different picture.

First, I believe that Elliance, a relatively unknown company, faced deeper jeopardy because we share the building with a high profile tenant whose name is emblazoned on our building. The company and the Wall Street firms it serves are at the epicenter of much of our economy’s discontent. I would argue that because of these factors, our neighbor posed Elliance a greater danger than we posed them, even if our Morse Code project was not operational.

Second, if drawing attention to our building was indeed a serious concern, the company could have gone dark with its sign. On the contrary, just a week before G-20, it replaced defective light bulbs in its sign, ensuring its name would be visible brightly to the G-20 delegates, and to the very activists they so deeply fear.

Third, as two tenants in a building, we could have arrived at a mutually satisfactory balance of self-expression and free speech. Instead of a neighborly dialog, we were served up a draconian threat through an intermediary.

In the end, Elliance decided to back down because we did not want to engage in a legal skirmish. Sadly everyone lost. The young creators of the art project were demoralized; the art project could not demonstrate the truly innovative spirit of Pittsburgh talent; the G-20 delegates and global reporters were deprived of carrying an intriguing Pittsburgh memory, in an otherwise deserted city.

The experience itself is another illustration of the points I made in my recent Op-ed article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which argued that Pittsburgh has much work to do to truly join the ranks of a G-20 city. It needs to encourage grassroots innovation to flourish, transform its thinking from being risk-averse to welcoming creative engagement with new ideas, and not be afraid to open its arms and embrace a future that may be unknown but that has so much more promise if we’re not afraid of it.

Hey G20! from Geoff Barnes on Vimeo.

It started when the city of Pittsburgh celebrated its 250 anniversary. In addition to remembering the city’s past, we thought it would be more interesting to look forward. Pittsburgh2050.com was created to give every individual a place to share their ideas about the city’s enormous potential – What could the city be like in the year 2050? At the beginning of the year, instead of sending an holiday greetings card just to our clients and friends, we launched www.2009hopes.com as a place for people to share their wishes for the new year.

Recently we conceptualized a new interesting project to empower ordinary citizens to send their thoughts to the G-20 leaders. Here is the project synopsis:

“On September 24-25, the G-20 Summit will take place in the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, where G-20 leaders, representing 80% of the world’s trade and two-thirds of the world population, will determine policies affecting our economic and financial futures.

To foster engagement despite the insularity of these talks, Osman Khan, an artist, and Elliance, an Internet Marketing Company, are collaborating to develop heyG20 as a forum that will allow concerned citizen’s of the world to voice their thoughts and opinions to the Leaders of the G20 Summit. The project is an interactive installation that will take place during the G-20 Summit in the windows of Elliance’s offices located directly across the river from the Pittsburgh Convention Center.

Interested participants may tweet their message to @heyG20 (http://twitter.com/heyG20), whereby their messages will be transformed to a multicolored morse code light show, illuminating not only the night sky but also the concerns of the world’s citizens.”

We’re pleased that this project received media coverage but feel the larger message was missed. It’s no accident that one of the outcomes of our wonderful art projects is natural buzz. I think the buzz starts because we live in a rather cynical world where people are genuinely interested in projects, which tend to have ‘goodness’ packed into them. Why? Because it’s refreshing — people enjoy the opportunity to share their hopes, desires and wishes without any strings attached.

It is redemption of our own souls, not buzz, that is the key motivation of our art projects. And that is the point that was missed in this article. Is the glass half full or half empty? The answer to that lies in the eye of the beholder.

Read the article on Post Gazette and let me know your take.