Time machine

«… What, then, is time? If no one ask of me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not. Yet I say with confidence, that I know that if nothing passed away, there would not be past time; and if nothing were coming, there would not be future time; and if nothing were, there would not be present time. Those two times, therefore, past and future, how are they, when even the past now is not; and the future is not as yet? But should the present be always present, and should it not pass into time past, time truly it could not be, but eternity. If, then, time present — if it be time — only comes into existence because it passes into time past, how do we say that even this is, whose cause of being is that it shall not be — namely, so that we cannot truly say that time is, unless because it tends not to be?»  Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, XIV

Though Time and Space are isotopes, they both entail continuous changing in perception. What is a standard in a scientific system it would be not in a subjective way. A building would keep same features, proportions and measures if moved to a different context in a different time but its meaning would change drastically. This paradox is a steady problem which leads to the difficult definition of a unique unit of measurement applied both to a scientific and a everyday language.

Moreover Web 2.0 encourages these difficulties and it is hard to define time and space when coping with internet information flow. Connections are the real unit of measurement as the Google ranking system proves, measures and volumes are related to the connections we are able to move, create, generate. Even Timeline is simultaneous and no longer consecutive on web navigation. Evolution is an iper-architecture which turns THE reality into simultaneous, realities different in terms of time and space.

As public spaces squares are Architecture par excellence, a consistent evolution of its meaning would lead us to considerate a square as the entirety of all squares in all possible times. The here and now is past, present and future.

The relativity of simultaneity

time machine – connection between different times

Temporary installations are placed in public, strategic squares: silent machines recording now to screening later on a defined delay. Machines cannot be modified, or change anything when recording but they can multiply space on different timelines when broadcasting, let watchers live simultaneous realities. Time Machines aim to the real Time Square.

space machine – connection between different places

Such as time machines do, space machines shows different places at the same time. They record and broadcast reality through different screens placed in several city squares. So that a single place becomes all the places moving edges to downtown, changing insides into outsides. No interaction between men and machine is allowed for both cannot divert the flow of time (and space), but the former can give birth to different readings (i.e. realities in some way) of an event taking place at the same time in the same place.