The Underwing is a covert dispatch system for analog organzing.
The Underwing aims to be a tool for analog communication in an age of increasing digital surveillance and algorithmic bias. We are an independent news distribution tool aiming to sow the seeds of civil resistance and direct action.
For the people by the people, we hope to see the streets filled with real voices, not bots.
Bring another bird
to your block.
Our plans are all open source, so go and make one yourself.
The Underwing Dispatch is an analog vending machine designed by MB to provide tools for nonviolent civil disobedience in a time of increasing digital control. The machine dispenses wheat-pasteable stickers printed on recycled newspaper, along with a map that guides users to locations throughout their selected city. Surfaces with the right texture for pasting, selected for their visibility, demographic reach, and position within patterns of local pedestrian circulation.
This project is a direct response to the current political and cultural climate, where activism and advocacy is increasingly tracked, policed, and pushed out of public space. Drawing from historic resistance movements under authoritarian regimes, where information had to be spread discreetly, in person, and anonymously, The Underwing asks how design can support safe and decentralized communication today.
As protest and active campaigning becomes harder to organize online without exposure, this project offers a small, intentional alternative. It cannot be monitored or traced and encourages people to move through the city with fresh eyes.
These wheat-pastable stickers offer an accessible way for more people to engage with analog and physical activism in their cities. Inspired by the tactics of nonviolent civil disobedience, these prints carry forward methods used during the civil rights movement and other historical campaigns for justice. The project also nods to the spirit of The Monkey Wrench Gang, where disruption becomes a tool to challenge and reshape the systems that govern us.
The machine itself is designed to stay out of the way. It blends into its environment and quietly supports the kind of resistance that puts physical presence over digital performance. Find it next to your local newspaper stands.
