TIME CAPSULE COMMUNITY PARTY
betahaus, Berlin
With just one week to go before heading back to live in the UK, it seemed perfectly apt that I should be standing in front of a giant map of Berlin in a dark Kreuzberg courtyard, suitably fuelled with wine and a good curry, contemplating specific places to place several small rounded stickers, each representing a 'time capsule'.
I had come to the Time Capsule Community Party, joining many others at betahaus in welcoming and celebrating the innovative brainchild of Israeli ex-theatre director Michael Ronen- a new mobile App for sharing and discovering online experiences in the world around us. One could certainly argue that we have enough of these already, but this one's a little different...
With Time Capsule, you share personal experiences about a specific location, and dictate the exact time and place that these experiences are to be discovered and enjoyed by others. For Ronen and his start-up business partner Daniel Paz, there was an urgency to create something set apart from the 'overwhelming, often meaningless flood of internet content'.
"Our digital memories shouldn’t fade out on social network walls or rot in our hard drives, but rather be shared constantly through the places where they were created. Our vision is to introduce a playful and exciting way to get connected to your environment and leave your own mark on it. Give a future to your digital memories by allowing places to remember people."
In the crowded hinterhof of betahaus the App's concept was playfully represented: firstly with a map and stickers, encouraging people to consider both their most memorable intimate and public experiences in the city; then with balloons- capsules onto which this personal reflection was to be expressed, before being exchanged for somebody else's. Once all of the frenzied interaction was over DJs Ipek and Yavuz ak got everyone dancing and led us into the early hours of Sunday- another classically quirky and exciting night in Berlin accomplished. Another memory to bank. And on the brink of leaving a city I have enjoyed living in so much, with thousands of experiences to look back on and remember, it was pleasing to contemplate the idea that with something like Time Capsule, Berlin could actually remember me back.
Watch the Time Capsule video here