WASTING-TIME MACHINE

Urban Intervention

Urban-a-where festival

Cyprus, Nicosia 2013

curators: Socrates Stratis and Maria Panayides

with the support of

Department of Architecture of the University of Cyprus

Natalia Agati, Olimpia Fiorentino, Arianna Giacomini, Matteo Locci, Serena Olcuire, Maria Rocco, Panagiotis Samsarelos

ENG

in the frame of URBAN-A-WHERE festival , The project stimulates the construction of an evolving-experimental-common space in the divided Nicosia, getting impulses from the confrontation with people to reshape space for encounter and exchange. A collective imaginary about losing time is generated by various inactive activities carried out by all the convened.

An urban mobile device invites neighbours, passers-by and friends to engage with its ever-changing facilities: the WTM _Wasting Time Machine.

ITA

Concepito per Nicosia, l’ultima capitale europea divisa, il progetto genera uno spazio di confronto comunitario per riflettere sul perdere tempo. Un sistema di performance coordinate ed usi impropri dello spazio pubblico puntano a stimolare un nuovo immaginario sul senso dell’inazione e dell’attesa. WTM_Wasting Time Machine è un dispositivo mobile che invita residenti e passanti ad interagire con le sue molteplici configurazioni.

Clashes of productive frenetic rhythms are what generate contemporary cities' incapacity to foster encounters.

Their naturally schizophrenic and non-productive souls are denied by an hyper functional time that compels their imaginative energy covered by a still dynamism.

In times of obsessing global competition, we are bound to reconsider otium as a generative peculiarity of our Mediterranean character.

We argue that it's time for refounding our cities beyond the impulse of sterile productivity.

We affirm that wasted time is indeed plentiful and constructive when shared.

With the WTM we invite people to leave their functional constraint in order to embrace the communal idle dimension, endowing their time for a reciprocal plentiful void.