informal urban practices

An overview of the Colour Space Behaviour project:

‘T.H’ Project group will work as small groups underneath the banner of a larger collective due to commitments and varying timetables.
Each member will undertake smaller stand alone projects that will collectively, when grouped side-by- side, contribute and relate to what is termed “T.H”……….

Key Phrases:
Communication; trial maze, observation.
Ephemeral; movement, Transient.
Stimulation of senses.
Momentum/ Transition.
Appropriation.
Emulation; Behaviour; Social Convention.
Viral Element; Growing/ spreading marketing practices.
Activation.
Relation-scapes.
Empowerment.
Hivemind.

‘T.H’ aims to:
1/ Members will use ‘T.H’ as a framework to expose public perception and social conventions.
2/ This will facilitate an experience for the user-participant to question urban social construct. With the stimulus provided we aim to harness the collective creativity that is born from individual speculation and interpretation.

Mediums/ Process to be undertaken;
Guerrilla advertising.
Culture Jamming (websites, blog, stickers, postering)
MX Classifieds.
Video, public performance.
Word-of-mouth.
Graffiti.
Subconscious objects.
Profile/ Branding.

this is a formal assessment of your work by an independant panel.

1: As individuals:
- Reflect on your learning activities undertaken to date, and on the Trading Market experience in week 6.
- Make a 60sec video reflecting on the market experience, including visual reference to your 20 Cards.
- decide if you will work in a group or as an individual, or work on individual projects as part of a larger coordinated group; if you decide to work in a group you will need to formalize that group at the review presentation (like present together)
- Make 1 x A2 printed out poster of your reflections on your work so far, using i.e. sketches, photos, diagrams, plans, text…

2: Speculate and Propose:
- Make a proposition for WHAT you would like to investigate for a major project for the remainder of semester, use this presentation to clarify YOUR interests for the rest of the semester. You do not need to identify what the outcome will be, but you may try to project an outcome, if you wish.
- Propose HOW you intend to work with what METHODS and APPROACHES, as individual or group.
- make 1 x A2 printed out poster proposing your major project direction (1 x A2 per person for groups), again: using i.e. sketches, photos, diagrams, plans, text…

3: Upload to Blog:

- title of your major project

-100 word statement of major project direction

- 60sec video

- 2 x A2 (from the above points 1 and 2) posters via Issuu

4: PREPARE TO PRESENT
to panel that knows nothing about your work (a) what you’ve done and (b) what you plan to do.  (5minutes max)

NOTE: you need to work through those questions and answer them as good as possible; if you fail to outline the above points at the week 7 presentation Mick & Rochus will develop you brief for you as a major project. so please see this as an exceptional opportunity to follow and investigate your own interest for the rest of the semester. It will be an enormously valuable exercise for you for your future studies and professional careers to develop the capabilities to identify, frame and formulate your own project within the framework of the studio outline, which is to investigate, test, expand, modify, design for, support, question,…..informal urban practices.

So we went to Preston Sunday morning and then Monday morning. On Sunday we asked people four questions:
1. What are you doing with your Sunday?
2. Do you do this activity every Sunday?
3. Do you do this alone or with friends and family (social or quiet time?)
4. How long has Preston been part of your Sunday routine?

Then on Sunday, we just generally asked people about their day, and kind of let them talk about themselves or whatever else it was that they wanted to talk about.

We initially felt awkward about just straight-out asking people about their lives, so we decided to make it into more of an ‘occupation’ perse. So we went to Woolworths, bought a few packs of Cupcakes and some paper and made a sandwich board and taped it to Nick that said: “Have a cupcake and tell us about your day.” We thought that giving people cupcakes in exchange for/encourage conversation would be a little more of a subversive tactic and kind of a fair exchange.
We where asking them to stop and do something that wasn’t the norm in terms of how you would usually behave in that particular space especially since we where strangers baring cup-cakes.

We found the people of Preston to be quite reluctant to speak with us. They didn’t trust that the cup-cake was free. Our actions where very out of the ordinary. The public felt suspicious of us. We think this has to do with the issue of safety in the area.
The participants that did approach us and then became comfortable with the situation where very willing to give us information about their lives.

The Human Race

We are surrounded by so much visual pollution in the dense urban space. The Negative effects of advertising and methods of re‐enforcing public insecurities are a by product of the places we live and work in. This intervention was aimed at inserting an element of positive re‐enforcement in commuter’s everyday routine.
The parody element of the ‘the human race’ was also to comment on the nature of our removed interaction with the many people that surround us within the city environment, the lack of interaction and the competitive mindset of the corporate CBD environment.

Chris and Michelle.

With help from Phil and Kerris.