A world championship of gameful architecture by Urbane Künste Ruhr, Invisible Playground, and 72 Hour Urban Action
July 23–27, 2014
Witten
Germany
www.72hourinteractions.com
www.urbanekuensteruhr.de
For 72 hours Witten will become the playground of a cultural experiment getting together architecture and game design. Five mixed international teams take over the streets of Witten and compete for the world championship. Each team represents one of the cities in the Ruhr valley: Hagen, Hattingen, Herdecke, Wetter and Witten. 60 participants from abroad and from the region transform neglected sites in the city by means of gameful architectural interventions.
The teams have just 72 hours—three days and three nights—to design and build these interventions on site and real-time. With the starting signal at 6pm on July 23, the teams receive their missions and the countdown begins for elaborating out the sites’ space potential and translating it on a scale of 1:1 on location. The “Camp” is a central place. The Breddeschule in Witten provides participants with premises where they can work and exchange ideas and also rest, sleep, eat and have a wash.
Dirk Steimann, chairman of Kulturforum Witten: “We are pleased about 72 HOUR INTERACTIONS taking place in Witten. The project is yet another cultural highlight that Witten offers its citizens. We are curious to see how the interventions alter the city and how people react to them.”
Katja Aßmann, artistic director of Urbane Künste Ruhr: “Together with the groups of artists we have done in-depth research on how to have fun in public space and in using the cities. With 72 HOUR INTERACTIONS people can intervene actively in the city and give free rein to their creativity.”
A diverse programme of events such as film shows, game-testing tours etc. during these 72 hours will allow citizens and visitors to accompany the creation of the interventions and test them. At the big finale on July 26, a jury will announce the best works. From then on, all interventions will be open to everybody. Complete programme at www.72hourinteractions.com.
Partners
72 Hour Urban Action is the world’s first real-time architecture competition, where international teams have three days and three nights to design and build projects in public space in response to local needs. The teams design and build within an extreme deadline, a tight budget and limited space. The first 72 Hour Urban Action competition took place in September 2010 as part of the Bat-Yam Biennale Landscape Urbanism. It since visited Stuttgart, Terni (IT), Moscow (RU), and Roskilde (DK).
Invisible Playground is a collective of artists, game designers and academics. Invisible Playground collaborates with cultural institutions around the world to create site-specific games and playful projects of various sizes and formats. Work in the Ruhr area has included: Ruhrzilla (2012 in Mülheim a.d.R.), Utopia Stock Exchange (2014 in Dortmund), and 54. Stadt (2014 in Oberhausen).
Urban Künste Ruhr is the new art organization in the cultural metropolis Ruhr. Based on the unique urban landscape of the Ruhr Area, Urbane Künste Ruhr together with artists, networks, and cultural institutions investigates the core of urbanity. Under the artistic direction of Katja Aßmann, Urbane Künste Ruhr develops and realizes projects that define the design of cities in a new way—always on-site and together with the people living here. Urbane Künste Ruhr risks a new perspective on the Ruhr Area, the city in general, and the possibilities of art.
