Project 2 Ideas...

The first thing I did to kick of this project was go out and explore with my camera; I focused mostly wherever I walked, and in the city centre, and on things I deemed to be an example of “working”.

I was to take pictures of things and then compare them as one of my explorations. Things I found myself focusing on, was the visuals of the sandwich boards, and also machines which were working to help keep order and provide services, without humans physically doing the job, for example, the parking meters, and the post boxes. This area is quite interesting because in the living sense, this isn’t working, but the lack of working, but we have create these machines so we don’t have to have a human doing the job. This could be an interesting thing to look at, particularly because I can get someone to help me as part of the story.  I am always hearing Anne’s voice saying “what it says about how we DO working”

The signs interested me for completely different reason’s, these are more interesting to compare between each other, What types of businesses have what type of signs, Are they all trying to attract a certain customer. Are the signs “working” e.g. do they bring customers inside.

I also took some shots of construction sites which was visually interesting, but more for the visual make-up that scaffolding etc makes. I’m having trouble figuring out what exactly about construction sites or scaffolding I could be interested in, or make an interesting argument out of to show a story…

Another experiment I did was focus on details and patterns. Something I found when observing was that a lot of people who are working disappears into these very tall buildings. All different styles, textures and made out of different materials, but they are all tall. This may be a city perspective on working, but as that is what I have access to this could be interesting. Perhaps, the taller the building, the more professional / groomed the person looks? I like the potential of this area, although I’d like to stay away from people all together as if we aren’t allowed to ask permission, and taking photos of people without their knowledge, where they could be identified is actually illegal, I think its easier to just leave people out all together. In that respect, the lack of people working in the first example would take any issues away.

Explorations

Differences between the signs and the machines are mainly the active involvement people have with the machines. They have buttons, are labelled, and people use them for an outcome. Generally made of metal, or steel, the machines tend to come in box form.  The sandwich boards all are rectangle, and made of plastic. The interesting differences in relation to the sandwich boards are how each place uses it. Is it just images, or just words? Is the shop promoting something, or just putting their name out there? Does the font style and images / layout chosen say anything about the type of shop it is? All interesting. For example, the MACPAC sandwich board has a chalk drawing of mountains. The boards are placed as far away from the door opening of the shop, but while still on the sidewalk