The proposed project is a study of the structure of an attraction, which, on the one hand, is an obvious ingredient of any tourist destination, and having own division into a number of mandatory elements, on the other.
An attraction is not just a monument of history or art, but the object of mass consumption, a sort of construct, the commodity created by mass culture to meet the demands of a new type of consumer.
By its structure, according to Dean McСannell, a famous classic in a field of tourism analysis, any attraction has a life cycle consisting of several stages of sacralization, and contains the following components:
[tourist / sight / marker] = attraction
Many different forms that markers may take are guidebooks, informational tablets, slide shows, travelogues, souvenirs, etc. It is necessary to note that among the most important Stages of Sight Sacralization are: the naming phase (takes place when the sight is marked off from similar objects as worthy of preservation), as well as the stage of "mechanical reproduction" - the creation of brochures, photographs, etc.
Due to this, the project, based on the theoretical basis, sets a practical task to create a number of new attractions within the framework of the festival.
[1] Using the offered location boundaries, artists and project participants entered into communication with residents of houses, employees of establishments located on a given site. As the result, potential attractions (stories, mentioned historical events or buildings) were selected, which corresponds to the first stage of their sacralization.
[2] The artists prepare edited descriptions of new attractions (in the form of scripts, maps, postcards, brochures, etc.) and directed the upcoming tour during the festival, the audience of which are the guests of the festival.
[3] Right after the festival, the project will was fully documented and published on the websites of artists and friendly media, thus completing the stage of sacralization of the found sights and marking them visible to the tourist mass consumer.
1 Cyprus Amber
‘Cyprus Amber’ is a neuroleptic stone that captures highly mobile bodies with a particular range of chemical composition. Mutated under the influence of frequent travel mobile bodies are no longer resistant to manipulation by Amber.
Whether it bewitches individuals in the tourist agencies, souvenir stores, penetrates into consumer goods or disperses itself in the air and water the stone always finds its way inside recipient bodies and begins to construct their desires and aspirations.
Touristic places and bodies are becoming containers not only for information (experience, memories, etc.) but mainly for the new intellectual substance called ‘Cyprus Amber’ which is an offspring of the generation of excess.
2 Traces on a surface
There is a visual remarkable trace on the building wall which is visible from one of the streets of the festival. We asked a few people on the street if they knew the history of the trace, and it seemed the sign had appeared by itself a couple of years ago. No one could remember the exact day it happened. One of the women confidently correlated the shape of the trace with the sign of a nearby pharmacy. Is it man-made? Is it a coincidence it appeared here?
3 Phantom’s plates
Signs on the houses is a lost culture in Soviet Russia, where all ordinary citizens had to be of the same rank.
Only very high-ranking people had the right to be mentioned. There are many plates on buildings’ surfaces in modern Moscow where you can see a precise information who and when lived there before.
In Larnaca, we stayed at a house where the entrance has plates which are covered with marks of time and changes. How relevant is the information indicated on them? Whom of these mentioned people still live or work in this place? For whom the sign has become a commemorative plaque?
4 A building renovation/new construction
It was surprising to come across information about the potential development project. If not this, nothing says that just in a couple of years on this site can grow a skyscraper that will completely change the historical and visual landscape of the city.
A foreign investor who is building commercial real estate all over the world, paid his attention to the modest street of the city of Larnaca. The building promises to be one of the tallest in the world. The number of floors is record for buildings of this type. It seems that in an attempt to divide the space into the maximum number of cells, the question of human conditions remains beyond. Do any of the locals know about the potential changes?
Do they wonder how this will change their lives? How important is it to preserve the existing landscape of the city and does anyone care?
5 Genius loci
The city is filled with spaces that are closed. Their windows are covered with dust, preventing to look inside. The whole surface is covered with traces of time, events and emotions, intertwining with each other and telling us their story. Sometimes it feels like we can read it. What is it about? Who are the authors? What are they talking to each other about?
6 Wedding photo agency
A shop window with wedding photos has become a real find. We spent a long time looking at people, details. Who are they, how did they meet? What is their fate? Each of the captured in the photo becomes the hero of an untold story. Only one thing is for sure, most of the couples who have become clients of this photo Agency are happy married. Such statistics make the company so popular that the queue for recording is years. What is the secret of this fact? Whether it is an external and inexplicable factor or just a coincidence?
7 Mysterious spot
There is a spot on the street I can't explain for myself. An unexpected discovery. The objects are chained to a pillar. A plastic stool, broom and scoop, empty metal box. Complete set for a story. Only once I saw something like this, on the cold night coast, illuminated by the dim light of ultraviolet lights. How can you explain such a coincidence?