TEMPO REAL
Proposal for Porto 2001 – European City of Culture
THIS PROJECT IS ABOUT A TECHNOLOGY – THE INTERNET – OF PUBLIC SPACES IN THE CITY OF PORTO AND IN OTHER CITIES, OF GLOBAL DIVERSITY AND LOCAL IDENTITY, AND OF PEOPLE AS AGENTS OF HISTORY, CULTURE AND IDENTITY.
“This project takes the use of the Internet from the domestic space, private or strictly commercial purposes, to a public space in which the audience / population of every day is confronted and participates in this cultural article.
This project is the first of its kind that can take place worldwide and is an innovative way to interpret the use of technology and to extend the notion of public space.
It is a project that takes deep into account contemporary aspects of culture and the preponderant role of information technology in modernity.
This project is presented in the context of the cultural event called Porto 2001 and intends to be a catalyst in the projection of this event, the city and of its identity to all countries that may express their interest to be part of the project”
TEMPO REAL ILLUSTRATION
TEMPO REAL - REAL TIME
TEMPO REAL (Real Time) was conceived for the Porto 2001 – European City of Culture. The idea was to connect a public space in Porto, with various other public spaces across the world, mediated by media kiosks with real time sound and image.
In 2001, there was a lot of talk about the internet and identity, as well as public spaces as privileged sites of culture (and cultural interventions).
The project was submitted to the event through a Lisbon based production company with whom I had worked several times – 0ACASO (sadly and following the 2008 depression, they closed). OACASO had a very good track record and they’re better known for the Aquamatrix show at the Lisbon Expo 98.
After many false starts and despite the interest shown by the event organisers, the project was in the end, pretty much ignored, as there never was a formal reply.
I like this project, and particularly at that time, it would have been an original but simple way to promote the Porto 2001 cultural event, as well as opening other public spaces and peoples to Porto’s population.
The project is divided into two parts: one is the theoretical grounding and the other is the actual proposal.
Extract:
This is a proposal to connect to the Internet via video conferencing (real-time video and audio) between a public space in Porto and several other public spaces throughout the world through kiosks.
Each kiosk would be linked to another in another country representing on the screen the image at the other point of the connection in real time and with the possibility of audio and text to establish communication.
So in each kiosk, we could see a situation of public space in another place, in another culture. In the other, we would be represented on the corresponding screen, as in a window, to “peek”.
By creating/exchanging this representation of the city of Porto with that of other places on the planet, the population will have access to a global community, also in a public space, to exchange local knowledge, to recognize similarities, to establish differences and to reconstruct identity in a contemporary (technological and global). The project is therefore about the articulation of local identity and celebration of global diversity mediated by technology and the recognition of public space as instrumental in its realization.
