MICROS

Abstract

For more than a decade, the streets of Santiago were dyed the bright yellow color of the buses that owned them. The incessant three-digit numbers passing by, exotic bus names, messages of love, improvised religious altars, cryptic messages of graffiti, flashing lights and disco balls, hanging teddy bears, and broken taillights created a rudimentary ecosystem that, through the years, became an irrefutable cult object. Amidst the permanent mess, pedestrian decoration and the warmth of the driver and his passengers, the Micros, as the busses are known, earned their place within Chile's collective subconscious. These illegitimate lovechildren of a discreet technology and a variety of different fanaticisms became the symbol that best embodied the socio-cultural back office of post-Pinochet Chile: a basket of good intentions tied together with wire. Equally loved and despised by Chileans, the Micros have driven their last loop through Santiago and through our lives.