Torino (Italy) – The concept developed for creating the setting in Piazza Castello, the square that will host the great city party that inaugurates the year in which Torino will be the world’s first design capital, is based on three key ideas:plural, collaborative and distributed design.
Plural because developed in a number of activities with different target groups and sensibilities. Plural in the offer of different levels of involvement, plural in the variety, in the languages, in the specific features of the designers invited to take part in the organisation of the first event of Torino 2008 World Design Capital: Prodea, the company responsible for the staging of the Design New Year, will, in fact, co-ordinate a group of Torino design studios and creative experts: Xflab, TODO design, Interaction Design Lab, Yet Matilde and Associazione NADA, who will contribute with their own creativity to consolidating and communicating the concept of the “polyphonic and participatory identity” of Torino 2008 World Design Capital, one of the key motifs inspiring the entire initiative.
Collaborative because the public will be called on to contribute with its own words, to become co-authors, to explore the sense of a mysterious object known as design, to “dirty their hands”, becoming designers for a day or even for only half an hour.
Distributed in time and space. To discover in the streets and squares. An event that aims to sow seeds, leave signs, in pockets and coats around the city.
Below we illustrate some of the projects that will develop this concept in practice during the evening and night of 31 December. Framing it all is a musical show to involve the public and give rhythm to this great party and the obligatory fireworks.
Waiting for the early bus – Botto & Bruno
The works of Botto&Bruno become a space for the imagination. For the first time we will see the development of the analogical process of the construction of images by Botto&Bruno, which become motiongraphics. The urban space disintegrates and recombines in new and atmospheric electronic panoramas, observed as they evolve into a finished work to the rhythm of electronic music. The installation, which includes two maxi-screens, will be created exclusively for the New Year’s Eve of Torino 2008 World Design Capital. At the centre is the stratified representation of urban scenarios, cityscapes and personalities through the eyes and design of two artists from Torino known and appreciated around the world.
Design Leaves
Has anyone never used a drawing pin or a paper clip? And who would define them as design objects? Yet their design is so perfect and unsurpassed that they are still produced and marketed today.
Design Leaves was created as a means of publicising themes related to design, and especially meanings linked to a term that is now used and abused every day.
10 different postcards/stickers characterised by a background colour, chosen from the greens of Torino 2008 World Design Capital and by the definitions that great designers have given to the term and the practice of design. On the back, the representation of everyday objects, whose design for industrial production generally dates back to the 19th century. Viral distribution in various points of the square, close to the installations and in neighbouring shops and bars.
LED Throwies Workshop
A 10 mm LED, a small lithium battery, a small magnet and a piece of insulating tape. Put them together and you will have a LED Throwie, a simple but ingenious, luminous technological device, ready to illuminate the city’s most well-hidden objects and corners. Presented in the green of Torino 2008 World Design Capital, it becomes the means to disseminate points of light in a viral, playful fashion, while at the same time provoking reflection on the theme of spontaneous design. Originally conceived by Graffiti Research Lab, a New York collective that reinterprets graffiti through technological developments to mark urban spaces, the LED Throwies investigate the thin dividing line between private and public spaces. A more fun and less dangerous alternative to New Year’s Eve fireworks.
Zygote – Tangibile interaction
The logo of Torino World Design Capital becomes a light sign in the balloons of the Zygote project: from a circle it takes shape, becomes a sphere and takes flight. Channelling the chaotic energy of thousands of people in a shared experience, giving the public a way to interact and play to feel part of the show. Interactive globes of coloured light flying over the square, taking on a different shade of green and lighting up each time they are hit, in line with the visual identity of Torino 2008 World Design Capital.
Design-ME
An interactive installation designed to gather together the collective voice of the New Year’s Eve event and make a spectacle of it. An invitation to speak out, create dialogue, an exchange of ideas, sensations, thoughts and words with the whole piazza through real-time visualisation, and multi-projection graphic animations. A communication short-circuit between the public, projections and the start of Torino 2008 World Design Capital.
Alessandro Bertin
Cell. +39 349 3102241
press@torinoworlddesigncapital.it