Interview with Esterni

Design, Event, Politic, activism, ecology, slow, subvertising, sustainable

Lorenzo Castellini, one of the founder of Esterni, a project devoted to the expression of individual creativity, inside a shared pubblic environment. Today the pubblic spaces are too often colonized by private interests, Esterni try to make people aware that pubblic space can be reappropriated by themself.

From 16 to 23 of april Esterni organized a pubblic event in Milan called DesignPubblico, that “promotes another way of living collective places together, a conception of “public space” as opposed to the preeminence of “private time”; first-hand visions instead of tele-visions; and democratic projects instead of oligarchies. Just in free or freed public places this collective revolution will be set in motion.”

ECOPOLIS: DesignPubblico want to promote spaces for diversity, what do you mean? content? relationship?
CASTELLINI: We’d like that the pubblic space of every city can express the diversity of the citizens: cultures, trends, behaviours and relations…
Today, instead also the pubblic spaces partecipate to the great campaign of levelling and approval.

ECO: we’re in the global communication era and we no longer say goodbye to the neighbour, and we need event like DesignPubblico to seat with strangers at dinner, isn’t that communications technologies tend to individualize and personalize rather then relate and share?
CASTELLINI: Not quite the technologies, rather the politic and market strategies that prefers to hit a weak target, that has no more interesting external inputs.

ECO: besides DesignPubblico, also other event like TakeawayFetival or UnDEAF focus on the interactions between the pubblic, rather than just presents content. How much do you think Internet has an important role to this attitude?
CASTELLINI: Internet can be the engine or the propeller, but has to be different from TV. I think that today the risk of a levelling of Internet to the TV is quite far away.

ECO: sustainable? what make you thinking?
CASTELLINI: Personally i think at a community of people, like a city, that decide to face together the future, the problems and the opportunities of everyday.

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Luca @ May 4, 2007