Uploaded on 2020-08-15 by Barbara Freschi

It's difficult to think about my city becoming a physical and software system when the reality in Venezuela is one of utter backwardness. In the picture uploaded you can't see the city, but it captures our dependence on electricity all too well. It was taken by me in my house, trying to make coffee during the blackout of 2019: The country's entire electric system collapsed, causing cuts-offs for ten consecutive days. We were going crazy, no way of communicating, food going bad in our fridges, people dying in hospitals, no way in or out of the cities, no source of information, it felt as if we were kidnapped inside our own country. In my city, Maracaibo, we still have electrical issues up to this day. Venezuela depends on outdated and damaged infrastructure in all fields. The damage is too great and the systems too obsolete, so patching them won't fix the root of the issue. Venezuela needs to not only redesign its urban systems to make them sustainable but make its cities liveable again.