How did these three designers come up with this social interactive event? “Pure desperation really,” according to Ganzeer’s Mohammed Fahmy. With their booth at December’s SOS Music Festival in Cairo still empty the night before the festival and a product line of clothes and accessories stalled in production, they sat around bouncing ideas off each until this one stuck. The booth was turned into a black box containing the three designers, their computers, and materials for twisting the curiosity and smiles of festival goers.

People were invited to place anything they had on them in a slot and in return came a number. After five minutes the number was returned in another slot and into their expectant hands fell the “recycled” item, altered according to the whims of the designers and any instructions they might have been given. The first thing to enter the Recyclator was, appropriately, a piece of paper with a question mark.

People were even brave enough to put their mobile phones into the experiment, with the first one coming back with a sweet and a new text message saying “Mabrook! You’ve won!” Some saw the Recyclator as a shooting star or Agony Aunt and wished for a groom (a phone number was proffered) or sought advice.
According to Fahmy, “people found it fun playing around with the idea and testing the possibilities of what might come out from the other end, so they got really adventurous with the stuff they put in.”
Surprised by the success of and reception to their idea, the three of them are yet to decide what to do next with their black box. Expect, though, to see something from them at the next SOS. With this much time until then, desperation might not need to be their muse.

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