MÁQUINA DAS DERIVAS
The Máquina das Derivas is an urban intervention/provocation that emerged in the context of Desejar - Movimento de Artes e Lugares Comuns and Braga 25. Starting from the question of how desire exists and transforms the city, the machine invites us to sow this impulse that moves us, roaming the streets and squares in pursuit of it and gleaning its fruits and promises.
Installed in Braga's municipal market square, the machine collected stories and moods, gathering steps and thoughts, suggesting ways of walking, looking, noticing, and acting. Through games designed to shake up our habits and learning, it offered a way to rediscover a city we thought we already knew.
In the first days, we met with groups and associations of people who tend to be overlooked in the design and experience of the city, inviting them to try out the machine and talk to us about their experiences.
The purpose of the games is to generate tickets for these walks in the city. Each ticket is stamped and then generated using random methods divided into four seasons and parameters:
1- ticket number, 2- which sense of the body will be the focus of attention, 3- what feeling is sought on this path, 4- which direction to start from.
Because the machine is not only contaminating but also collecting, after its drift each person should leave a small pink sticker with the ticket number in the place that affected them and bring back the ticket with a description of their experience, adding it to the collection.
The collection of accounts of experiences tells us of a multifaceted, subjective city that is constantly transformed by individual and intimate experiences, in a fluid dialogue with the city that has been built and designed.
Type of project: Art and community
Where: Braga, Portugal
When: November 2024
General Project: "Desejar - Movimento de artes e lugares comuns"
Promotor: Braga 25
Conception/Design/Construction: Colectivo Til
Colectivo Til members: João Gonçalo Lopes, Diogo Monteiro, Luísa Capalbo, Patrick Hubmann
Mediation: Simone Almeida, Ana Bragança
Fotography: Joana Jorge, Colectivo Til