During International Design Week, I participated in the workshop PLAYS! with Emilio Leonardo.
One of the sentences that accompanied the workshop was:
“Playing is a serious way to imagine other possible futures.”
The activity explored play as a tool for knowledge and imagination, not only between humans, but also in relation to animals and non-human systems. Through scenarios, roles and collaborative processes, we worked on the possibility of seeing the world from different perspectives.
One of the exercises proposed was “A day in the life of…”: choosing an object and imagining a day in its life.
The inspiration came from the work of Max Degtyarev, who tells the everyday life of a bench through an illustration showing what happens around it during different hours of the day.
Looking out of the window, I chose an object that we often see without really observing: a street lamp.
And this is how the story of Giorgione was born.
A day in the life of… Giorgione, the street lamp
Giorgione starts his day when most people are about to finish theirs.
As the sun goes down, he slowly opens his eyes and turns on. From that moment, he stays awake until sunrise, while the city around him changes rhythm. During the day he stays silent, almost invisible, but at night he becomes one of the few fixed points for those passing by.
His life does not follow real schedules. He always stays in the same place, while everything around him changes: people running, bicycles passing, seasons changing.
Giorgione observes.
He sees people coming home late, someone stopping for a phone call, someone leaning against him for a moment.
Sometimes someone gives him a little tap, almost as if he was an old friend.
Dogs are also part of his everyday life. He sees many of them passing by and, regularly, someone decides to leave their mark at his feet.
To stay on during the night, Giorgione needs electricity. He does not drink, he does not eat, he does not move, but he completely depends on the energy that keeps him awake and ready to illuminate those who pass by.
It is not an easy life. He is always there, in the same place, while everyone else moves. Even when he is turned off during the day, someone continues to interact with him and this sometimes makes his resting time more difficult.
Maybe the hardest part is being far from others. The other street lamps are his family, but they are often only distant points of light across the city.
And yet, every night, when he turns on, Giorgione goes back to doing what he does best: staying still and accompanying the movement of others.
This exercise felt particularly interesting because it allowed me to change perspective: instead of observing an object from the outside, I tried to imagine what the object itself would see.
A street lamp is no longer just a functional element of the street, but becomes a silent observer of everyday life.
