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.