Group members
Anne UA Mara MIC Nina MIC Troels MIC
Assignment wording
For the assignment you are to develop a project for a place influenced by paths. The project should aim to heighten a feeling of secrecy/intimacy based on the idea of work.
Concept
Our project will be taking place in three different locations all influenced by paths in a more or less secret way.
The idea is to work with three places that are framed on different scales:
1) A closed space
2) A semi-closed space
3) An open space
The closed space is a workplace framed by physical walls and influenced by paths in the sense that while working one's movement pattern turns in to a web of private paths within the frames of the place. Basically the idea is to focus on the path pattern instead of the job and then move these private paths to different locations. These locations will give the paths new meening in that the idea of work is removed and the focus is solely on the pattern. Furthermore moving the paths will heighten the feeling of secrecy because the meening of the movement pattern is not visible anymore. Moreover the three places will provoke different degrees of interaction with the private paths.
Performance
In practice we will send Mara to work at Ris Ras, provide her with a cell phone and a head set and then start a conference call between her and two other group members, Anne and Nina, that will be situated in the two other locations. Mara will describe all her moves to Anne and Nina on the phone and then they will have to act out the excact same movement patterns in the locations, where they are.
We are going to work with temporality in the way that the person in the open space will be moving continually, only doing the turns and not the stand stills. Consequently we expect that this person will make a much larger pattern of paths than the original work pattern. This person will have a whole area of the city to move around in, taking both streets and shop aisles into the web of paths.
The person in the semi closed space will have to do all Mara's stand stills as well as the turns and so we expect, that this pattern of paths will stay on the same scale as the original one and in that sense construct a well-defined space even though there are no physical walls surrounding it. This is what we name a semi-closed space. For this purpose we will choose a square in the city with no actual visible paths or walls in it. The intention is that this person will create her own private paths mapping them on the ground with a piece of chalk at the same time.
Documentation
1) Closed space: Ris Ras
When opening café Ris Ras in the morning, I walk the same paths and make the same patterns every morning. They are only visible to me and my co-workers. My patterns and paths are intimate and private, but are vital in the sence that the space I use is the base for making the café a public space in the end when the café opens for customers. When the café opens, my patterns and paths are gone because they only exist in my private space.
Therefore, it was interesting to be all set with head-set and be connected to Nina and Anne. Basically, giving Anne and Nina orders gave me a sence of how private my work is in the morning hours. My private patterns was all of a sudden not private, but open to Nina and Anne, and through them open to public view.
Still though, I was in my own intimate work-role as I was wired up with a mobile phone and giving orders.
I was keeping my private sphere, yet I was connected to my surroundings: the city. And by Nina and Anne's performances also to the public space.
2) Semi-closed space: Under the Aros staircase
With a long stick fit on a piece of chalck, a primitive headset - that is a cell phone stuck in my headband - and connection to Mara in Ris Ras I was ready to start acting out Maras movements. The directions she gave us were limited to "left", "right", "stop", "up the stairs", "down the stairs", and a single "I'm balancing the cash" (because that took a long time and I was bored I drew a big pile of blue coins in this spot of the route). But Mara gave us no instructions how to move arms or legs - only pattern related moves. I was the only person supposed to react to "stop". Anne would just keep on moving straight forward. Because of this the size of the pattern I made is approximately similar to Maras work pattern. In the pictures taken from above it shows that the web of paths is very well defined though not surrounded by walls.
3) Open space: Strøget
While Nina was placed in front of Aros and Mara was standing in Ris Ras I found my startpoint in the middle of strøjet Århus close to Salling and Søstrene Grene. I called Mara and had to wait for her connection to Nina. When we finally were connected to eachother by cellphones and headsets, Mara just had to say go. My cellphone is an old Nokia whithout headphone so I had to place my cellphone under my hat. My codes were: "left" and "right". when Mara said "stop" I just had to continue walking in that direction until something stoped me like a wall, building, tables or signboards.
Like Nina I painted Mara’s path with a long stick fit on a piece of chalk. There were several problems with this stick. At first it was raining so the chalk got very wet and started to disintegrate. In according to Nina I walked much more around and had to change my chalk every fifth minutes. So the painted path got less punctual. And after a while the painting on the ground disappeared so I couldn’t reconstruct my movements from start to end.
Reaction
People became very irritated and confused. Some stopped up and tried to figure out what I was doing. I don’t think that any body understood my action. I think if I had had the stop codes like Nina they probably would understand that these chalk-lines are going to construct a map of an unknown building or a path of someone inside an unknown location or interior.
I had an agreement with Mara and Nina, that I just should walk and paint the path without talking or react on people. When somebody was standing in my way I had just to go on. It almost happened that I was stepping on someone’s feeds. But I was not afraid of bumping into someone because they quickly moved away. I think the people became afraid or shocked because I stepped into their private circle or sphere.
When I had to put a new piece of chalk on my stick, suddenly a woman shouted at me. She was upset because of the chalk-lines. In her opinion I was going to pollute the city. I was very surpriced. I think if I had been a kid she never had said anything against this. I tried to ignore her and to go on with this but then I forgot a piece of chalk. She was following me and said: You have to take it up! that is so typical for the inhabitants of Århus, they always throw their trash on the streets!
Another funny situation was when I just had to go straight ahead. I had to cross the street but there was red light. People were standing and waiting for the green light. But I had no stop-code so I just continued and went over the street by the red light. People starred after me. Suddenly Mara said “left” and then I walked straight into H&M.
Comparative maps
Conclusion
Intimacy: Intimate connection between the three of us in that our bodies simultaneously did the same thing. Maras work-space is an intimate situation, but through her intimate connection to Nina and Anne via mobile phones, the intimacy of the work is expanded through the performances outside the work space at Ris Ras.
Secrecy: The meening of our movement was secret to everybody but us. A point here is also the fact of secrecy in Maras work-patterns, and how they here become expanded to open and more 'visible' space.
Work: The patterns and paths existing in a working situation is secret and intimate for the working person. Here is an experiment on how the frames of working look if we expand it to semi-open space and open space.
This project has been an exercise in how public space (with and without people) react to closed and intimate/secret space and paths: Maras work.
The connection from Mara to her surroundings (Nina and Anne) is also very interesting - none of this would ever be possible without their mobile interfaces: the mobile phones. The mobile phone in this case is Maras only 'hot-line' to the out-side world in her intimate work-situation in her own little paths.
Concerning intimacy/privacy: In this project we have been "(…)offering a means by which to codify experience and thereby to recall and record various aspects of everyday life.", to take a point form Caroline Basset's "How many movements (…)". We expand the intimate work situation, which is private to Mara, in the sence that we make it an 'event' visible to the public eye. Everyday life is routines in patterns and paths in various work-situation. It's a funny thought that thise intimate every-day situations is what makes everything flow in every-day life. And therefore it has been interesting here to see what happens when it is possible to record (here making the maps in the city) these secret movements. One part in this has been the concrete people responding and reacting to Nina and Annes performances and the other part the visual communication: the colourful drawings of Maras intimate and secret work patterns in the city of Århus.
Theory
Certeau, Michel de. 1988 (1955).The practice of everyday life.Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23699-8. Pp 91-110
Goffman, Erving. 1996.Behavior in public spaces; notes on the social organisation of gatherings.New York: Free Press of Giencoe. ISBN:00-02-911940-5. Pp 31-88
Debord Guy.2006 (1959). Détournement as Negation and Prelude.In Ken Knabb, ed. Situationist International anthology.Berkeley, Calif.: Bureau of Public Secrets. ISBN 978-0-939682-04-1. Pp 62-66
Hopman, Aske. 2005. Amsterdam Realtime.In J. Brouwer, A. Mulder & A. Nigten, eds. aRt&D - Research and Development in
Art.Rotterdam:V2_Publishing/Nai Publishers. ISBN: 90-5662-389-3. Pp. 48-57
Sadler, Simon. 1998.The situationist city Ma.: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-19392-2. Pp 69-103
Stevens, Quentin. 2007.The ludic city: exploring the potential of public spaces.London: Routledge. ISBN: 978-0-415-40180-7. Pp 26-46
Feedback from Lone and Johanne
We like the concept and it ties in nicely with the general themes of both MI and UA. It seems like it is very similar to Follow the Receiver, a performative art work presented at last year's Conflux festival in New York (http://www.confluxfestival.org/conflux2007/follow-the-receiver/)
How does your project differ or can you make it differ from this? Further, how is secrecy/intimacy a part of your concept? It seems to us that 'paths' part is very strong in your concept and 'work' is nicely integrated as your concept is basically based on the link between movements and the work they reflect, whereas secrecy or intimacy is less clear. This may just be due to the way you have presented the concept here, so the following are meant as questions for you to think about: Try to make your own obstruction (as in the Hemment exercise) by altering the project by only focusing on how secrecy/intimacy could be the key aspect. When done, merge the old concept with the new secrecy/intimacy based concept and see what happens. Could you use C Bassett (MI) or Locke's notion of TIZ to make the secrecy/intimacy clearer? Or maybe the paper by Lone and Susan Kozel (MI) that you're supposed to read for Tuesday?
