Thegalleryistalking recruitment presentation

After last weeks 'sorry im late presentation' i'm worrying that i haven't put any useful information in thegalleryistalking presentation at all. But hopefully everyone got enough out of the presentation to e-mail me if they are interested. I'm still worried theough.
The presentation did go well- Mo told the first year's before thier lecture this evening that they should all come along because it is a brilliant project, which drew in about 30 students, and i got a couple of questions at the end. It looks promising that a couple of people will e-mail to be part of the project:, I suppose a lot is dependant on this though:

"The Gallery is Talking is a collaborative project that was set up last year between Tate Britain and Stage 2 of the BA Fine Art course at Chelsea

Established to increase accessibility of the existing in-gallery text for people with dyslexia to refresh resources at  The Tate Britain, the project soon engaged with wider issues related to art and communication and the very way we experienced and looked at the gallery.

During this first year we discussed at length what actually makes a text accessible and engaging, and if text is in fact the best way to reach out to museum visitors. The participating students devised a series of resources aimed at people who don’t usually rely on text during their visit, but who would like to access the ‘gallery’s voice’ through other media.  After a year we have made a large amount of progress in resources produced.

Last summer, towards the end of the first year of this project additional students were recruited to the project by the course, this included Stage one students with the hope of developing the project this year.

As the remaining participants from this group we would now like to expand on and evaluate our ideas further. This, we believe would be done best opening up the project to other disciplines and students, to maintain it fresh and relevant with some new members, fresh ideas and a new outlook.

Now I am going to briefly talk about the work we have been doing and our progress so far.

The Map concept is something that took a lead within the paper resources made during the year. It was keenly worked upon because of the problems that the group felt the existing normal Tate map contained. Small things like stairs not being logical to the structure of the gallery, to not having any visual reference to where you are on the map. E.g. ‘Room 15’ does not help us know where we are as much as a landmark such as a stained glass window would.  The actual production of the map was quite complex, It is something that was incredibly difficult to manage and to make, but the success with this resource is that the Tate now wish to trial the map on the main information desks of the gallery. 

The website that has been developed by Sam has become a hub to share our learning and resources and opinions.  It is linked to the Tate Britain website and can be accessed by anyone that goes onto the Tate website through a link. We have already had some interest from a museum asking about our progress due to the originality of the project.

Please take a note of the website: www.thegalleryistalking.org and perhaps you can look in more detail after the meeting has finished about what we have been doing. 

There are also other resources that have been made to expand The Gallery is Talking to its visitors. Chatterboxes were made as a way for people to talk about art in a way that is recognisable and fun. Audio questions was a way of finding opinions about traditional gallery forms i.e. Curatorial statements and text; who writes this and what are they trying to say- talking to people about the gallery within the gallery. Finally, the active forum, a way to produce conversation around all of these subjects I have been speaking about. 

The opening was a way of showing the public what we had been doing with the project, and was a great way for us to get some feedback. It launched the website, introduced our resources as well as giving visitors on the day some ‘only on the day’ events in the site specific environment that was so necessary for the launch.

For example, we had a digital comments board that visitors to the Tate could add to by text messaging, and of course our map making workshops right in the centre of the Tate. 

If you would like to know more details about the project, please send me an e-mail or have a look on the website. Otherwise if you would like to be a part of the project please send me an e-mail with your name and a brief explanation of why you would like to be involved. I’m happy to take any questions you have now, or if you would prefer, I will be staying behind here for about 10 minutes.

Thank you for listening and I hope some of you are interested in taking part.

Any Questions"

 

 

 

 

'Sorry i'm late' Presentation

From last weeks discussion with Bex- today was the big day of collaborative performance.
The collaboration, we had decided was to be about the distribution of text that Bex produces in her everyday practice. Bex would throughout the week distribute information whilst i would gather (If found) and translate it into a performative piece of work. Hopefully the seminar group would also pick up on these nuggets of information.
I received a text last night- through extreme fear that i wouldn't receive any information saying:
'page 2/2
Lines are down
seek other methods'
From this, i gathered that the information was about the train strikes that have been happening in recent weeks and i decided to write a presentation/ speech about change (after all, this is what you seek from striking) I also decided it should be ambiguous, like the text that Bex had sent- as if all the people in the seminar group had received exactly the same lack of information that i had (Which it turned out that they had) and we were all in the room on a 'revalutionary hearsay' basis. Titled 'Sorry I'm late' to be the only emphasis on what i presumed the text was about:

I know, i know, I’m sorry i’m late. It was expected that i would be late, so i’m sorry but there was really nothing that i could have done. I tried to get here on time. It didn’t happen. You know how things are. It didn’t happen.

But anyway , I’m sure None of us want to be here. To be honest it took me an hour longer that in should have to get here. But we can’t be talking about why we are here, how we got here, but only how we can change the way we got here. 

WE CAN MAKE A CHANGE TO THE WAY THAT WE GOT HERE. 

It’s time that we did make a difference. If not for ourselves, but for future generations. I have younger sister. She is 10, what will happen when she is in this position? And to be honest the way the youth is like today, she’ll be there before i ever was a her age. Do you know what i mean? Children aren’t children anymore. This cannot go on forever, otherwise they will begin to get too old.

 People have rights, that is understandable. But this is why it has happened really. If people didn’t have so much freedom then they wouldn’t have the option to aggravate other peoples lives. Other people have lives, lives where they want to talk to others- tell them their ideas, their thoughts. I admit that. But they shouldn’t have to have lives that affect other’s lives...  I’m glad that you are thinking along the same lines as me. Without having common interests people are nothing. 

PEOPLE ARE NOTHING WITHOUT EACH OTHER

I read a book before. It was about France. Well, It was set in France. I’m certain. A small book, not many pages, a story book; it was about philosophy. Well. A philosophy. A philosophy about how people can affect each others lives in a detrimental way without even realising it. I remember the book because it had some really nice illustrations in it. I advise that everyone reads it. It will help with how you are feeling at the moment. Anger is only a thing that you can feel in the present text. 

This leads me to my final slide and the object of this presentation. You all came here for answers, and that's exactly what i am going to give you. Answers. The answer is of course is that there  was a consensus. Nothing that i could do about it. And only something that YOU can change. Yes you. Not me. I am here to encourage you to do something. 

Of course you may think that the reasons were right; or even just reasonable-  for these people doing what they did..., but you have to remember  why i was late this morning, why you are here and why the person  sitting next to you is here. They are here for you as much as themselves, and they are here for your children, and your children’s children.

Remember:

People are nothing without each other- We can make a change to the way we got here.

You probably have questions. I don’t blame you. I would.    If you do, please contact me by e-mail. I’m more likely to answer quicker. (Show contact slide)

Thank you for your time. (sit down)

My character was 'stumbley' and out of breath, as if it was a nightmare to get to the presentation, and i didn't allow time for questions- although i think it was quite obvious within the presentation that the character had no more information that anyone else. The work was a way of explaining the links between our normal work and i think that the similarities are mainly in language and style of dispersion of information. I know that my work is always very ambiguous and i think so is Bex's.The main difference which is quite obvious is the way we distribute our work. Mine is very controlled and 'in your face' where as Bex's is subtle and up to the viewer whether or not they take the work.
a lot more forthright with strikes and will gather as large communities to protest for others; instead of the British attitude of complaining about strikes.
Overall- feedback was very good and it was quite a good opportunity to make a piece of work with a guaranteed audience.

A little Inspiration for tomorrows performance: Brown (fantastic book)

Collaborative Presentation

Today in our Seminar we found out that we are to do collaborative presentations of our work in the coming weeks. I have been put in a pair with a girl whose work links to mine because of it's social interest- we were told we were put together because we both had accents- but after speaking for a long time it was clear that this wasn't the case, i don't even think i have an accent. Anyway, it was interesting mainly because i haven't really spoken to this person about my work before and to a majority extent don't know hers. We both work in extremely different ways- the ethos of Bex is to relax and find the right time to make her work, for me it is more about doing something straight away and jump in the deep end without thinking. So as we have decided to make a collaborative piece of work for next Thursday this should be interesting.
Bex is interested in everyday systems (For example phoning a call centre) and in a way another link to mine is that her work can be around small amounts of angst that cannot be resolved. Her work usually comes in the form of nuggets of information that can be found, if you want to find them- my work is a lot more confrontational. Another thing that will make the out come of our collaboration more interesting.

I also had another fundraising meeting today- one of success due to the astonishing amount of money the baking Team make on their first Sale- It was around £250 and they managed to sell everything that was made. We have decided to have the bake sales once a month to generate the best income as possible- I'm trying to encourage the baking team to have themes for the next couple of sales. Joe today also announced that he was going to be organising a Christmas Fayre for the 1st December- it sounds like there are a lot of people interested in running a stall- hopefully we can make a good amount of money from this too.