Final overview

I thoroughly enjoyed this module as it gave me the opportunity to be creative and create something of my own in a large space. It was also extremely rewarding to see such a sense of community in the library and see everyone coming together and joining in. We had a one hour session with Clare and the rest of the class today and we discussed all of the performances. All of our class members said they were shocked at how well our performance was received and that they really enjoyed taking part and experiencing the applause. The library staff are very happy with how the performance went, as are our fellow students. So it appears that everyone is happy... Mission accomplished.

Reflection of the performance

On the 10th May we had our final performance, and we all arrived at 9am to begin with a short briefing with Clare and to organize what we would need to do in the lead up to the performance. This only lasted a few minutes and myself and Anouchka then took the next few hours to set up. Clare had already set up two screens on the ground and third floors for our documentary to be shown so with the video already sorted- we focused most of our time on setting up for the applause. During the briefing we told the whole class what our project was about and asked that they help us by participating in the applause. The class all seemed very excited- admittedly this was probably at the prospect of being able to make a lot of noise in an otherwise quiet space, however everyone was happy to help.

Between 9:30 and 11am myself and Anouchka recruited a few of our friends and colleagues to help us give out the flyers. We printed 100 flyers and walked around the library handing them out to people and explaining what the applause was about. We advised them to go and watch the video beforehand which a lot of people did. We also put some flyers around the entrance of the library so people could pick them up as they entered.

The documentary turned out to be very successful and a lot of people came to watch. The staff were all very excited to see the final video as they had been a part of making it. One of the participants (Lisa peace) actually watched the video several times as she enjoyed it so much. We were thanked by many staff members for bringing to light what they do and giving them some appreciation. We were also told by Clare that our documentary had a heartfelt reason behind it that she found to be quite touching.

At around 12:30 the applause was drawing close and we decided to ask some of our colleagues to stand in different places around the library on different floors. This is so we would have a definite clap coming from spaces all throughout the library and hopefully this would make people join in. It also meant that we could all see each other. We decided that the applause would begin with a hand signal from myself and Anouchka that was a count down from 5.

The applause itself turned out extremely well and went a lot better than expected. The sound was thunderous and there was also people cheering and whistling as well as just clapping. It could be heard throughout the entire library and we had a vast amount of people joining in outside of the Theatre Studies community.

Video of the applause

Performance day reviews

Today was performance day in the library and I have written three reviews about three different performances that I witnessed.

The first performance I saw was "The tree of stories" by Sherelle and Georgina. Here is a video of the performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Pe_dg9ZhPCk#!

I thought that this performance was very interesting in its presentation. The cardboard tree stood out and seemed to grab the attention of a lot of people. I liked the idea that the tree represented the body of the UEL library and each leaf showed a story or an opinion about the library. I personally participated in the creation of this in that Sherelle gave me a paper leaf and asked me to write my favorite place in the library on it. People seemed to be very willing to write down their favorite places and add them to the tree of stories and I think Georgina and Sherelle did well in finding participants and actively asking people to join in. This performance ran throughout the day which meant that people could keep adding to the tree and by the end of the day they had a very impressive amount of stories written on it. Overall this was a creative and interactive performance that utilized the library space effectively and was enjoyable for people.

The second performance I witnessed was Fitness Geek by Shanice, Shanice, Hande and Yughiny. Here is a video of the performance: http://publicproject1.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/fitness-geek/

This was a two-part performance in that it included a video running throughout the day as well as a live work out routine that was performed in front of everyone in the library. This idea was very creative in that they took certain movements you would see in the library on a daily basis such as a reading a book or sitting in a chair and turned them in to a workout routine encouraging people to be more active while studying. The video was played at the same time as the live performance which made it eye catching and interesting to watch. A few students did join in with the work out routine and a lot of people stood around to watch. The group also shouted instructions as they performed the routine so that people could remember the steps that they were doing if they wanted to join in. This was a very creative use of library space and certainly caught peoples attention. I think this performance was very successful

The final performance I witnessed was "We are the world" by Simona. This performance was a creative art display on the ground floor of the library that showed the multi-cultural aspect of the UEL library. Simona had gone round the library and asked people about their nationality, also taking some photos, and she then displayed them as an art form on a large poster board. The display was easy to view and she had included some statistics about the percentage of people from each different country which was very interesting to learn about. She also included some information about the different languages UEL library users speak. While viewing the performance she also explained a bit about her own culture as she is originally from Lithuania. She explained that UEL is such a global university and she wanted to raise awareness of how many nationalities and races of people enter the library each day. This was an educational piece and seemed to engage peoples interest, especially overseas students.

Today has gone very well overall.

It's almost show time

Anouchka and myself have given our finished documentary to Clare via external hard drive and she will be organizing large screens that we will be used to play our documentary in the library on the 10th May. At this point we are starting to notify other students about the performance. We have told our class about the aims of the project and what our hopes are for the day of the performance. We are also asking friends around the university campus to spread the word and invite people to come and participate in the mass applause on the day. We have now created the flyers that we will be handing out to people and placing around the library asking for participants. The text that will be featured on the flyer is as follows:

THERE WILL BE A MASS APPLAUSE HERE IN THE LIBRARY AT 1PM. WE ARE FIRST YEAR THEATRE STUDIES AND YOUR HELP WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED. THIS IS TO SHOW APPRECIATION FOR UEL LIBRARY STAFF AND YOU CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR CAUSE BY VIEWING A SHORT VIDEO ON THE GROUND AND THIRD FLOORS WHICH WILL BE PLAYING FROM 11AM TO 3PM. EVERY PAIR OF HANDS COUNTS.

And now we wait...

Editing: Solving the issues

After meeting with Peter today we have managed to solve all of the issues we first encountered. This enabled us to continue editing for a few days and the finished documentary is now finally complete. Below is a list of how we solved each issue we originally encountered.

Background noise: Unfortunately some of the clips had to be completely cut from the documentary as the background noise was too overpowering. However Peter showed us that we could change the volume levels of a piece of footage in final cut pro so after playing around with this for a while we have managed to make the majority of background noise very minimal, and it is now hardly noticeable.

Jumpy cuts: By using the T (Transition) tool in Final Cut Pro we were able to make a much smoother transition between our shots and our documentary as a whole now flows much better.

Music: We were able to decrease the volume levels of certain points of the song in order to allow the participants to be properly heard. We were able to fade the music gradually using the fade tool for more important points of the documentary and make it slightly louder at times when we show still images or shots of staff working where no extraneous sound is involved.

Now that our documentary is edited and saved on a hard drive which we will be giving to Clare, our next point of focus is the live performance which will be happening on the 10th May. We will be meeting again this week to talk about the preparations for this and we will then establish exactly what we need to do.

Editing: Problems we have encountered

We have spent a few days editing the documentary and making it in to one flowing piece rather than short clips of interviews. It is going very well and we have a concrete order for which shots we will use in which places. However we have encountered a few problems with the editing process and some of the footage that we will need to be amend for the documentary. Here are the issues we are currently facing:

Background noise: Some of the student interviews are filmed at busy times of the day which unfortunately means there is a lot of background noise and the students cannot be heard as much as we would like.

Jumpy cuts: Although we have managed to cut the interviews down to just the "important" pieces, we are experiencing some very rigid and jumpy cuts from one shot to another. We will need to make this a smoother transition so that the documentary flows better as a whole and appears more professional.

Music: We have chosen an instrumental track played on acoustic guitar that we found on YouTube for the music. However when we played this with our documentary, some of the voices are drowned out and the volume is not quite correct. We will need to find a way to fade the music properly so that it can be heard in the background but the main focus is on the interviews and dialogue.

We will be meeting with Peter who is a member of technical staff at UEL who will be helping us to correct these issues before our next editing day.

Photos

Now that all the filming is complete, we have been looking at including some still photos in the documentary. We have taken some ourselves on a still camera and used some from the university website. Here are the photos we will be including

Filming days 2 and 3 (Final interviews)

Yesterday myself and Anouchka went to meet Voka, Dupindar and Rob to film their interviews in the library. Voka and Dupindar were filmed together between two books shelves near the library skill zone and Rob was filmed at his desk behind the second floor help desk. Rob's interview went very well however when we watched the interview with Voka and Dupindar we were slightly unsure of including all of their answers. Although these two participants were very helpful and polite, giving us some good answers, they put a lot of emphasis on the fact that they enjoy the benefits of only working part time, and they enjoy having a long summer break. They spoke a lot about these kind of benefits rather than the aspect of helping students. Although this is fine and perfectly acceptable for them to say, it is not in-keeping with the tone of video and the point we are trying to make. We want students to be aware that the library staff are here because they want to help students therefore students should appreciate the help by being more respectful of them. To get around this we will include some parts of their interview but simply edit out the parts that don't fit with our idea.

Today we completed our filming with Judith and Martin. We filmed these interviews as we did the rest in the library, including the shots of them working to include throughout the documentary. Both interviews appear to have gone successfully and the participants gave some very good answers and it was interesting to interview Judith as she is the manager of the library, so her answers were quite different to some of the other staff. We are pleased with all the footage so far and have booked an editing suite to begin editing the interviews and creating our documentary.

Student interviews

Today we filmed some interviews with students in the library. These were mostly friends of ours or flatmates of Anouchka's however all students signed a consent form and were made fully aware of the aims of the project. All of the students appeared to know hardly anything about the functionality of the library and most of them said they could not manage without the library. This is exactly the outcome we predicted and we are pleased with this footage as it will really show the importance of our reasons for making the documentary.

Filming day 1 (Lisa and Cath)

Today we filmed two interviews with staff members Lisa Peace and Catherine Johnson. The first thing we needed to do was find a quiet location to film with minimal background noise. Cath suggested that we use her office to film her interview in, and we decided to film Lisa's interview near a book shelf in a quiet area of the second floor. We spent a few minutes setting up the camera and tripod before filming each interview and asked both staff members to position themselves in the frame so we could get a clear, steady shot of them. We then did a final check that both ladies were comfortable with the questions and that they knew what was expected of them. Anouchka did the filming today and I asked the interview questions. After the interviews were finished we came up with the idea of filming both Lisa and Cath for about 30 seconds each in their normal work environment. This was so we could use these pieces of footage for transition shots in our documentary and to show a bit more of the work of the UEL staff that we don't always see. We have decided to do this with all of our participants. Having looked over the footage, Anouchka and myself are both very pleased with the footage and we have started to think about certain powerful statements each participant made or dramatic pieces of the interview that we want to include early on in the documentary to catch peoples attention. For example in Lisa's interview she stated "All i want to do is make people smile". We plan to film three more participants, Voka, Dupindar and Rob on Monday. Voka has informed us that her and Dupindar will be doing their interview together rather than separately so over the weekend we will be thinking about how to divide up the questions between both of them and how we can make a joint interview effective.

Gathering materials & preparing for filming

Today Anouchka and I completed the final steps of pre-filming preparation for our performance. We have booked a video camera as well as a still picture camera to use for our documentary, and we will be using these tomorrow when filming begins. We have now managed to come up with a concrete plan and concept for what our documentary will be like, and we have been thinking about what we want each shot to look like. Here is a detailed plan of what we plan to include:

Short interviews with students about how well they think the library is run, and how well they could cope without it: We want this to be the first section of the interview to support our point of view that students don't actually know much about how the library is run on a daily basis and what the staff members do to make it function properly. This sets up the rest of the documentary.

Staff interviews about their jobs: Here are some of the questions we plan to ask the staff members on camera:

What is your job role?

How long have you worked here?

What are some of the ups and downs of the job?

Have you ever experienced any rude or disrespectful behavior from students?

Do you feel appreciated and recognized for what you do? Are students aware?

What is the most rewarding part of the job?

The staff interviews will make up the main body of the documentary, and hopefully these will be strong enough to put our point across and raise awareness.

We have emailed our first two staff members (Lisa and Cath) these questions for them to look over before filming begins.

Tutorial with Clare

Today Anouchka and I had a tutorial with Clare to track our progress in creating our final piece. She asked us to think about the location of our final performance in terms of where the documentary will be shown and where the applause will take place. We came up with the idea that our documentary will be shown on the ground and third floors and will be played on a loop throughout the day. The applause will take place throughout the library.

Our progress: We had already emailed several staff members asking them if they wanted to participate in the documentary and for those who agreed, we went to meet with them and asked them to sign a consent form. They were all made fully aware of the aims of the project and that they would be on film and their name would be included. The staff members who have agreed to participate are:

-Judith Preece

-Martin Hamilton

-Voka Jeannette Nsinga

-Dupindar Patel

-Lisa Peace

-Catherine Johnson

-Robert Anderson

Project Proposal

Here is a copy of my Proposal for my final project.

Name Anouchka Ntezimana U1213055/Katie Evans U1145775

Contact Email anouchkantezimana@hotmail.com/kt_evans_07@hotmail.co.uk

Contact Phone Number 07596430142 07791694449

Title of your project A day in the life

Please describe your work in 50 words (this will be used in promotional material about the festival)

We plan to arrange a mass applause in the library for the staff that works there. We will firstly film a short documentary about the importance of the UEL library staff and how they contribute to the functioning of the library on a daily basis. This will be shown to students prior to the applause so that they fully understand the cause. Please tell us about what you would like to do including the ideas behind the work and how it works with an audience. (200 – 300 words)

We believe that the staff at the UEL library is taken for granted. Their importance is not recognised. We would like to convey to the people that come in to the library that the work that the UEL library staff do every day is important, whether it be visible or hidden from us. To do this we would firstly like to film a short documentary focusing on various staff members that work in the library. This would involve some documentation on our part of the daily tasks the UEL library staff complete to keep the library functioning. We would work closely with the staff by filming some of what they do as well as documenting it using some more oral methodologies such as interviews alongside this. As the final element of our performance we would like to create a mass applause in the library after the film is screened on the 10th May to thank the staff for their work and to creative a piece of art promoting a sense of community within the library. One particular real-life practitioner Paul Rooney inspired us to do this project. He created “lights go on- song of the nightclub cloakroom attendant” about the hidden importance of this job. His work shows that sometimes jobs that we may feel are inadequate and menial can be the jobs that are most important to us without us even realising. Another influential piece of art work that we have seen is the “We love libraries” film screening that took place in Euston Road in 2011. Similarly to our own idea, this project involved the idea of using a documentary style short film to convey to people how important the library is and to emphasise the sense of community. We want to reveal to people the importance of the little things that the UEL library staff do. An example of this would be pointing us in the right direction to a book. This may seem like a small action but without this help we may not ever find what we need. We also want to celebrate the hidden work of the staff, for example cleaning up the library after hours. We feel this project will create a positive message- hopefully inspiring people to be more appreciative and respectful of others whether it be the UEL staff or in their personal lives.

Please tell us about your target group (community) and how your project will interact with them. (200 – 300 words)

The first community that we will be working with will be the UEL library staff. Hopefully our project will give them a voice and help them to feel more appreciated for what they do. We plan to work with 5 or 6 different members of the staff, all of which have different roles. Some of these roles might include a shelver, a cleaner, a security guard, a librarian, and an assistant. We also want to emphasise the idea that all UEL library staff are equal in importance and each of their jobs is just as crucial to the functioning of the library on a daily basis. We will be working with UEL students as our target audience. Our project will interact with the UEL students and users of the library by revealing to them the work that goes in to maintaining the functioning of the library and encouraging them to appreciate the UEL library staff. As our project involves a mass applause involving many different people, we hope that our film can encourage them to celebrate the work of the UEL staff as a community.

Please tell us when and where you propose to present your work (location/venue/time)

We plan to present our work on the 10th May in the UEL library. We plan to do this In the afternoon when the library is at its busiest time (this will be about 2-3pm).

Please provide a project timetable detailing key targets and actions to be taken between now and the project delivery e.g. permissions, materials, health and safety checks

Permissions- We have already spoken to Peter Williams who is the Assistant Campus Library Manager and we have gained his permission to carry out this project.

5th April- By this time we plan to be beginning to speak to library staff about which of them would be willing to participate. We will also give them some information about the project and the reasons behind it.

11th April- We will be handing out consent forms to the library staff willing to participate.

25th April- We will have acquired all the equipment and materials we will need to film the documentary.

3rd May- We will have filmed the documentary to show in the library

5th May- We will have the laptop and screen ready to project the documentary of our work. We will also have a loudspeaker or microphone to be able to do the countdown to the applause. We will practice using the screen and equipment to make sure it all works.

7th May- UEL students will be notified about our project and what day and time it will be taking place. This will be done via e-mail and by paper flyers that we will put around the library.

Please list the equipment and materials that you will need to deliver your project We will be using the following equipment and materials for our project;

-Camera

-Laptop

-Memory Stick

-Projection Screen

-Printer to print flyers

-Microphone/Megaphone/Loudspeaker

Please describe the evaluation process that you will undertake during and following your project delivery We understand that creating this project will be a long process. We plan to evaluate our work along the way to improve and develop our ideas, making our final project a high standard and successful performance. The first thing we will need to consider is meeting with each other regularly. As we are partners in this task, we will need to regularly discuss what needs to be done in order to complete certain elements of the project in enough time and check that we have completed these tasks against our project timetable. We will also need to regularly ask our teacher for feedback on our work. We recognise the importance of constructive criticism and are willing to take suggestions from someone who is knowledgeable about this subject. We will be posting our progress on our blog as we continue to plan the project. This will help us to track our progress and keep up to date with the different stages of development necessary.

Please detail any ethical considerations that your project raises, and how you plan to address them

Our project raises the ethical issue of having people on film that may not want to be. To overcome this we will be handing out consent forms to the participants that include the fact that they may be on film if they participate. This will also be done when we send the email to UEL students and included on the flyers we place around the library on the day of the performance. The UEL staff will be made aware by ourselves and the manager that they will be on film and that any information they disclose will be seen publically. We will make the UEL staff aware that their names will be included in the credits of the documentary and ask for their consent to permit us to do this.

Please give details of your project budget We will need to allow a small budget of around £10 to print enough flyers to go around the UEL library. Audience suitability: Is there anything in your work that we may need to make audiences aware of e.g. swearing, nudity, flashing lights etc

The only thing our audience will need to be made aware of is the fact that they may be filmed during this project. The staff will be made aware of our use of the microphone/megaphone/loudspeaker that we will be speaking on to do a public countdown to the applause.

Please also include a brief artist’s statement that describes you and your work, a CV and any images/plans/maps or other materials that support your proposal.

Paul Rooney- Song of the Night Club Cloakroom Attendant

Paul Rooney is a practitioner in the public realm who worked with a night club cloakroom attendant and created a song about her work called "Lights Go On". Here is some of his work: http://www.axisweb.org/artwork.aspx?WORKID=37753

I found this to be an interesting piece of research in relation to my final project. This is because my project will involve me working with staff members in the library to shed some light on their job and highlight the importance of what they do. A similarity between my own work and Paul Rooney's is that both librarian and night club attendant can be seen as a menial and unimportant job by some. However both of these jobs involve talking to hundreds of people on a daily basis and coming in to contact with people from all over the world. This is why I want to raise awareness of what the library staff at UEL actually do and hopefully make people more appreciative.

An Architecture of Interaction

We looked at a reading in class called An Archiecture of Interaction by Best. He describes the three main categories of audience that are generally involved in a performance. These are participants, onlookers and witnesses of trace. The participants in a performance are those who are not actors or practitioners but are directly involved with the performance. Onlookers are those who witness rehearsals as a performance, and witnesses of trace are those who see documentation such as photos or video as the final piece after the piece has been performed.

In my performance I will be having witnesses of trace who see the footage of the final piece and participants who will be involved in the performance.

Independent Study Tasks

After being asked to devise my own independent study task that would help towards my final project I decided to interview students asking them to rate the library on a scale of 1 to 10 on the following aspects and statements:

- Functionality (How well does the library function)

-Helpfulness of the Staff

-How easy is it to use in terms of finding books? Is everything clearly marked?

-Tidiness

-"I believe I could cope on my own without using the library" How strongly do you agree with this statement?

I interviewed 10 students on each of the above, here are my results

7 out of 10 students gave the library a score of 5/10 or higher for Functionality

9 out of 10 students gave the library a score of 5/10 or higher for how easy it is to find books

10 out of 10 students gave the library a score of 5/10 or higher for tidiness

3 out of 10 students gave a score of 5/10 or above of how easily they could cope without the use of the library

This task will help me towards my final project in that my idea involves seeing the library through both the students and the staff.

Week 4- Ethics

Today we looked at some performances in the public realm and considered some ethical issues that they might raise and how these could have been addressed. We looked at the three C's of ethics: Consent, Confidentiality and Conduct. For my final project and my proposal I will be thinking about these three aspects.

Firstly I will need to consider Consent. I learnt that before including anyone in my project I must fully explain the aims of the project and notify them of any risks such as the possibility of them being on film and having their names included. Consent can be verbal but I plan to get my participants to sign consent forms to that I have written confirmation of their willingness to participate.

In terms of Confidentiality I have learnt that an individual always has the right to keep their identity private and confidential. I will need to explain to all of my participants that in my project their name may be used and they may be filmed so they are fully aware and may choose not to participate or ask that their information is not included in the performance.

I will also need to consider Conduct. I need to behave in a disciplined and professional manner throughout the whole process of creating my performance and during it. I will always be on time to any interviews or meetings I may have scheduled and I understand that is unacceptable to be rude or disrespectful and that I will always need to be polite.

After discussing ethics I took part in a video editing workshop where I learnt the basics of video editing using the programme final cut pro. I also had a chance to use the video recording equipment and learnt how to upload footage to the editing programme.

Favourite Places Revisited

For this task I spoke to Three students in the library about what their favourite place in the library was and their reasons for this.

Student 1: Guraman Bhullar

Age: 23

Studying: Business Studies

Favorite place: Third Floor Skillzone

Reasons why: "It's a comfortable and quiet place to study and I always feel relaxed there"

Student 2: Jasmin Koohi

Age: 19

Studying: Journalism

Favourite Place: Second floor help desk

Reasons why: "I can get all the help I need here from staff if I have any problems or questions"

Student 3: Richard Hopley

Age: 19

Studying: Music

Favourite Place: Second Floor Bridge

Reasons Why: "I can see everyone and everything in the library from here and it is interesting to look at"

This task made me think about what people use the library for. The three students I spoke to gave very different answers in that one of them enjoys the library as a place to study peacefully, one of them enjoys the aspect of getting help from staff members for different resources and questions, and one one of them enjoys the library as an open space where he can observe what goes on. This has made me see the library in a much more creative way, as I now realize that everybody who uses it has different needs and the various spaces within the library really do cater to everyone's.

Week 3

Today we looked at the Reading by Darren O'Donnell. His reading shows his idea that Art can be very difficult to create as a single person, but can be created on a large scale by a small group of people triggering certain events that increase it's size. He says that art has great impact on the world and we discussed and questioned whether individuals have power or not. Some of the art he mentioned address political concepts or disrupt ordinary situations in the way that they are performed. Some of the examples he mentioned are:

Artigas- This took place in California on the Mexican border. It involved two football teams and two basketball teams playing their games on the same pitch at the same time. This relates to O'Donnells reading in that it questions the laws of borders and could create potential political controversy.

Library Freeze- In this Performance, people froze in a public library at a certain time to show appreciation for books. Only a certain amount of people knew about this therefore this art disrupted the verisimilitude of the library to make a statement.

We looked at the image of a person covered in scrunched up newspaper which was by Ian Breakwell (Episode in a small town library) and in small groups we came up with our own interpretations of what this image could be portraying. We were given newspaper, scissors and cello tape and were asked to produce our own performance based on this picture.

Our group decided to create a symbolic piece based on the idea that an individual can gain so much knowledge from the UEL library and sometimes it can be overwhelming. One of our group members sat at a desk working, while the rest of us walked up to her at different times and stuck a few pieces of newspaper on her. We did this until she was completely covered in the paper, just like the image from Ian Breakwell's work. As some students in the library were not aware of what we were doing or the reasons for it, they became very confused. For this reason the ordinary situation was disrupted, and as Darren O'Donnel believes, this can be one of the most effective ways to create art as it makes a big impact. Below are some photos of our interpretation of Episode in a Small Town Library:

One Square Meter

For this exercise I spent around 20 minutes in one square meter of the library and fully documented my observations. The area I chose to do this in was the area surrounding the inquiries desk on the second floor as this is usually quite busy. While I was there I wrote down notes of everything I saw, heard and observed. Here are my findings: It is 2:16pm and from my position on the chair at the left of the help desk the first thing I notice is 5 students in front of me working on computers. They are spread out from each other and there is at least a space of one or two chairs between each student. This observation seems to occurred every time I have been in the library. To my right is a blonde member of staff who is speaking to a male student who appears to be quite young. I cannot fully hear the conversation between them but I catch a few words every now and again and from what I gather it seems to be about renewing a book. Behind me I see Judith the library manager walking to her office, and several other staff members working. Only two of them are conversing and the majority of noise I can hear is from students talking. There are rather a lot of students walking in and out of my frame of view. It appears to be quite busy. There are no specific smells at this point except from the Apple Tango that I am drinking that I smell each time I open the lid. I can hear typing coming from the students working across from me, and I can hear one of the printers printing someones work. My observations from this area show that it is quite busy at this time of the afternoon. This is interesting as my previous observations have been during quieter times. It is good to finally see the library working in full swing.

Quantifying Communitys

After looking at the definitions of the word "Community" in class I began to think about the different community's that are in contact with the UEL library. I realized that although Staff and Students are the major communities here, communities can be based on things like gender, race and ethnicity, identity and age. Here is a list of I came up with of all of the communities I can think of that use or are in contact with the UEL Library:

-Library Staff

-Students

-Communities according to age (first year, second year, third year etc)

-Communities according to Ethnicity

-Communities according to gender

-Communities according to whether they live on or off campus

-Communities according to sexual orientation

-Communities relating to extra curricular activities that they are involved in eg. sports teams

-People who make deliveries to the building

-People who use online chat rooms to connect (distance learning)

-Security Staff

-Students working on computers (either on their own or with others)

-Students reading

-Communities according to which subject they study

The Night Owl

As i write this I am sitting at a computer on the ground floor at the back section of the UEL library. My back is facing the back wall of the building near the fire exit and in front of me I can see the span of whole library. I can't see anyone on the upper floors and I can't really hear anything except the occasional rustle of someones jacket or bag or the odd sigh or sniff. It is 3:45am. I plan to spend around half an hour here to see what the UEL library is like at night. I will be recording my observations. The library is very quiet at this time, I can see four people sitting at computers, all very spread out. I notice at night, even more so than during the day- people spread themselves out in terms of where they sit. There are three females and one male in the central area of the ground floor. Lets begin with the male, he is sat the furthest away from me- closest to the library entrance. This young man has tanned skin and dark hair and he is slightly overweight. I notice he is wearing a black coat with a JD sports bag across his body as if he's packed up his things to go home however he is working away and doesn't seem to be ready leave any time soon. He is also wearing dark blue jeans and white Nike trainers. He occasionally yawns and looks tired.

The first female I see is drinking a can of sugar free red bull- a wise choice for this time of the morning. She looks surprisingly alert and awake and is taking regular breaks from her work to send and receive texts messages. On two occasions she subtly smiles at her texts but I can tell she's trying not to.

The second female I see is just leaving as I write this. She's a small, skinny blonde lady and wears a coat about three sizes too big for her. It makes her look almost childlike. She's carrying a handbag but instead of holding the handle she has it scrunched up in her hand like a carrier bag and she's carrying her phone and ipod in the same hand. She walks briskly out of the library without giving anyone a second look. I think she was in a hurry to leave. At this point the only male is walking towards upstairs leaving his computer unattended and he disappears from my view.

The third female has brown hair tied back in to a ponytail and she has dark circles around her eyes, however she doesn't look particularly tired. If she is, she's not letting it bother her as she seems to be doing a lot of work- typing impressively quickly. She's wearing a grey hoodie and has her brown coat hung over the back of her chair. She's also wearing black boots and leggings. She doesn't seem to be paying attention to anyone else.

It's been about four minutes and the male has come back in to view with two books in his hand. I caught a glimpse of one of them and I think it may have been a journalism book. I couldn't see the other as it was tucked under his arm. He goes back to his computer and reads the first book.

No one has smiled at anyone since I've been here. It's not the first time that I've seen this kind of behavior in the library. Sometimes I forget we're all expected to completely ignore each other unless we know each other. Personally I'd be quite happy if someone I didn't know smiled at me. With this thought in mind I'm going to be leaving the library in a few moments. I'm going to smile at the lady with brown hair before I go as she is opposite me and see what her reaction is. She did it back.

Well at least I know I'm not invisible. That will be all.

One minute script

Christian: I just tried to get Pulp Fiction from the Library and they didn't have any copies, honestly the library here is rubbssh

Anouchka: May be it's just on loan, it'll probably be back by the end of the week. Honestly I don't think the library's that bad. You haven't even seen all of it .

Christian: Your point is? I don't need to see all of it; you can polish a turd but...

Anouchka: You know, christian, there's this place on the second floor where you get a great view of the sunset. It's quiet and it's spacious. No books, no computers, no nothing, I go there and I can really think. Even makes studying more enjoyable.

Christian: OK. Show me that sunset

Library Mapping

For this task we had to choose a particular floor of the library and draw a map of it detailing the key features. We were then to spend a period of time in this space and write a detailed description of our observations of everything that we could could see going on in this area. For this task, I chose the ground floor of the library and i visited this place at two different times of the day, spending around 15-20 minutes observing each time.

The first time of day i visited the library was around 9:30 am in the morning. Surprisingly the library seemed to be quite busy at this time. I stood at the top of the ground floor ramp leading up to the computer area in the central part of the library, which allowed me to have a good view of the entire floor. The majority of people i could see were simply sat at their computer monitors, working or about to start. There was one man listening to an ipod as the computer started up. Everyone seemed quite normal. The first group of people I became interested in were a group of three girls all sharing one computer. They seemed to be in their late teens or early twenties. These girls all appeared to be extroverts- loudly chatting and laughing, generally making quite a lot of noise. For this time of the morning, they seemed to be quite dressed up. I noticed Girl A was wearing red lipstick and seemed to be wearing a lot of makeup. She was the one making the most noise. Girl B and Girl C were laughing at most of what Girl A said. Girl B appeared to be looking around at other people in the library, almost embarrassed at the amount of noise they were making, she looked as if she thought they were making too much of a scene but she still joined in the conversation and laughed at everything Girl A said, let's call Girl A the leader here. Girl A and Girl B had a piece of paper in their hands. It looked as though they had an assignment or some work to do and they knew they had a deadline, but they didn't seem to be in the studying mood. At this point the library seemed more like their "hang out" spot rather than a place to work.

As the group of girls chattered and laughed, my eye moved to a slightly older French man. I know he was french because he was speaking on the phone, and i recognized the occasional word or two from my GCSE french class. He was speaking rather calmly and quietly on the phone, and the conversation didn't last long. When he ended the call, he put his blackberry on the desk in front of him and put his head in his hands as he looked at the computer in what seemed to be frustration. He stayed in this position for about three minutes without typing anything. Maybe he was having difficulty with his work. Maybe he was tired. Maybe he simply wishes Girl A who is now loudly talking about not being able to fit in to her new pair of jeans this morning, would kindly shut up.

The second time of day i visited this spot was about 12:15pm. I saw an Asian lady at one of the computers that I've seen around campus before. She looks about 40. She always has a pair of sunglasses poking out of her pocket even though it's not the weather for them. She had a Costa bag next to her that looked like it had some food in it. She is always alone, and she looks like she does a lot of thinking. I wonder what about.

At the other side of the monitors I saw a few people sat on their own working. A few people nearby were in small groups of two or three doing the same thing. A tall man wearing a hoodie and headphones was staring at his computer and eating a packet of crisps, and a lady was sat in a chair using the computer with a small child in the chair beside her. The child was restless and was humming to himself while he kicked his legs, he looked about 4 or 5. It occurred to me that even though these people and myself included were all in such close proximity- it felt as if we were in our own separate universes. I wonder why we don't engage with others even though we may be right next to them.

I noticed two girls talking at a table, talking about an assignment they had due. One of them walked over to a member of staff who was standing near me and asked her where she could print her work. The interesting thing was the girls voice had changed to a high-pitched, well spoken kind of voice that was almost like a new persona. It sounds like one my mum does when she's on the phone. It's like she's acting. I wonder why people change their voices when interacting with people they don't know. It's like an unwritten social rule.

Overall, some interesting observations today.

Week 1

Today we began looking at the definitions of "Public" and "Community". Here are some definitions of the word "Public":

1 a : exposed to general view : open b : well-known, prominent c : perceptible, material 2 a : of, relating to, or affecting all the people or the whole area of a nation or state b : of or relating to a government c : of, relating to, or being in the service of the community or nation

Here are some definitions of the word "Community":

1 : a unified body of individuals: as a : state, commonwealth b : the people with common interests living in a particular area; broadly : the area itself c : an interacting population of various kinds of individuals (as species) in a common location

This exercise made me think about who the public are in terms of the UEL library and the university as a whole and the different communities within the UEL Library that I could consider working with for my project.

We then looked at some practitioners in the public realm who have created influential and successful public performances. I found that a few of these performances particularly interested me and inspired me with a few rough ideas for what my final performance could be like. I felt that the work of the Guerilla Gardeners and Sophie Calle was very inspiring. This is because both performances involved doing something nice for the community for no apparent reason. The Gardeners planted Sunflower seeds in downtrodden areas for the passers-by to enjoy. They then took pictures of them as they grew. Sophie Calle decorated a public phone box with flowers and beverages, and slogans such as "Enjoy". I found the idea of carrying out a performance with a nice gesture for someone else to be very interesting and I kept this in mind for my final performance.

Next we went in to the library and visited our favorite place there. We wrote a short paragraph about why this was our favorite place and what we liked about it. This exercise made me become more aware of certain spaces in the library that I previously did not notice and I began to consider how some of these place could be utilized and become more than just an open space. The black square in this image shows my favorite area of the UEL library. It’s on the 2nd floor and overlooks the center part of the library. I considered choosing the bridge next to it- another good viewpoint to overlook the library and see everything. However when i stood there I was in everybody else’s clear view. I was in sight. There is something interesting about being in a place where not everyone can see you. I almost feel as if when I am in this place i can remove myself from the busy environment below and take a step back to really look at things and observe.