Case Study: Say Something

During Jo Spencers workshop she gave us an hour to find something in the university that we would consider interactive and then study it following the headings of who, what, where and why. The idea was to really hone in the skills that she had gone through with us earlier by getting us to find, research, question people and then condense the research into a PDF to present to the class. First of all my group came across an exhibition poster.

We felt that the poster was interactive as you have to pick off the ticket to get more information about who to send your work to. Even if you pick of the label and put it in your bag, you will come across it and remember, whilst if you just saw the poster you would probably just forget. I think it is a nice way to really get the message across. Also the different style of the poster made it more eye catching in a noticeboard of many. Another interactive piece we found was a set of three white cubes with the writing, 'Say Something' across one of them. 

The idea of this is to get students who walk past to write something on the cube and express themselves as apart of a scheme to get people involved in a Bank of Knowledge exhibition, which was explained on a poster behind.

The idea is to bring one object that has a story or memory that you are wiling to entrust to the bank, you then have to fill out a form explaining the memory or story. The bank will then use the object as part of an art exhibition and you are invited to visit the exhibition and do talks about your object, or keep it anonymous. Its actually a really effective idea and the 'say something' idea goes well with getting people involved into the Knowledge Bank exhibition. However the location, in the corridor to the canteen, is not very effective, as everyone is running past to get to a meeting, take a break or eat food and when I questioned students who had walked past 7 out of 8 people said they had never even noticed it before. When I asked the one person who had noticed it why they didn't take part, he said because it would be awkward and embarrassing to write on a box in the middle of the canteen, also there wasn't a writing tool to write a message with and there isn't any signage really to explain what it is so he wasn't sure if he would be damaging school property. I thought that these were all really good points and just shows how location and practicality and lack of explanation or signage can really ruin a really intriguing idea.