[published May 5, 2005]
Time will be the thread running through the whole Event, from the first day of the Convention to all seminars, workshops, proposals for schools, as well as any other connected activity.
“Time marks and qualifies not only the moments of playing, generally speaking, but also everybody’s life”.(Huizinga)
Our journey will take place in the domain of research and comparison in the world of playing activities and men through time, involving people who have somehow to do with “time”: such as scholars of physics, psychology, pedagogy, sociology, anthropology. During the week we will have the possibility of listening, relating, learning, exchanging ideas, doing activities, building, experiencing and playing ... we hope with enthusiasm, emotions and dedicating to all this the right time.
This journey will be an adventure in order to discover different territories, which will bring out thoughts, theories and experiences.
We will try to have a dialogue on the plurality of times: objective and subjective time, social and cultural time.
The first part of the journey concerns Time, Play and Individuals. Time is Chronos, the chronological time and time is also Kairos, the personal time, the time of growing up changes, frenetic and artificial times of our age: time in history and still the time of games playing.
Playing is the centre of civilization and it is considered the origin of culture and social organization. So beyond art, science, religion, philosophy, legal right we find the playing spirit; “culture rises first as a playing form, at the beginning, culture is a play...“ and playing is as important as surviving and producing.
In a period and in a society where the culture of spare time and of entertainment are compulsory, overcoming the vision that producing time is the aim of man’s life (HOMO FABER), we propose a vision of the recreational and creative time of man as the purpose of life (HOMO LUDENS) (Huizinga).
Other details of the above mentioned journey will deal with Time, Play and Context.
Time suggests space, such as space needs time. Kant in philosophy, Piaget in psychology, Einstein in physics imagined that time and space were strictly connected.
What are the areas dedicated to the right of playing? How can we protect time and playing areas in more and more chaotic and polluted cities?
In Turin, like in other Italian towns, we’re trying to study individual, company and institutional times with the purpose of having more flexible time and to coordinate timing in a more functional way. Timing should be suitable to a complex context, like the context of cities in order to let people, families and children find their time and enjoy it in appropriate spaces.