DYMO labels

For Labelling the Photographs

DYMO embossed labels - Black

can get tape and label maker on ebay. cheapest £4.
black tape costs £8 for two 2meter rolls which is quite expensive
will look for cheaper.

Bill's photographs

Bill gave us these photographs that he took about 11 years ago, outside his house

Name suggestion?

Had some fun anagramming harper road. here are some gems:

A Harder Pro

A Hard Roper

Aha Drop Err...

Dare or Harp

Hard Ear pro

Or Hard Rape

Hoarder Rap

Oh Rad Raper!

I quite liked this one though

A Harp Order

Oh also me and Fraser were thinking if not, what about "concrete playground"?

Jess x

next meeting

lets meet tomorrow (monday). at 10 in imi. we need to get on with the frames. we went to the workshop area downstairs and it looks like we might be able to do all the work there if we wanted to make them ourselves. also we might be able to get all the wood we need from offcuts.

i managed to get hold of camera no 3 (mackie) i ll meet him monday as well (around 1) to collect it.

group exhibition

just a couple of things i thought about today when talking to a few people about the exhibition. thought i write them down so i dont forget and everyone can comment.

we could get sponsors for drinks provided at the event. i know someone who s had their exhibition sponsored by a company for example, could approach them to see if they would be interested.

should/can we have an exhibition catalogue?

we could devise teams to clean/prep the space before the exhibition and our stuff goes into the space.

also thought more about the identity for the xhibition. if u stayed a little longer on thursday after the lesson you might hav overheard raymond, josh and me talking about possibly naming the exhibition 'connect harper road' as connecting with the local community and the space in itself seems to be a unifying concept throughout most projects.

i took that idea and came up with a few images we could develop into something like a logo maybe. inspired by the geo scape of the harper road block, the group colors and the concept of reaching out, connecting.

the color allocation is random at the moment but maybe could in the end even serve as an indicator for the curation in the space. i.e. every group could get its seperate corner/part.

interview with bill

Chained Camera

To get genuine pictures from the locals perspective at different times of the day.

Idea: To chain disposable cameras around the area. Interesting to see the results.

Also this could be used in the exhibition, as a photographic guest book.

Picture Takers

Wednesday 5th 2010

Disposable Camera Participants:

Bill
Sandy
Harper Road Building Security Man
Mr Mackie (Liberal Democrat)

Liberal Democrats on Harper Road

So Much To See And Do Right Here On Your Doorstep

Telephone Booth: Redial : Could find out who was last called and why.

Idea: Map area and mark special places
example: "this is where so so called so so else and found out so so else got engaged"

Newington Gardens

Newington Gardens on Harper Road
Sign about the history of Newington gardens reads:

Newington Recreation Ground occupies the site of Horsemonger Lan Gaol which, along with the adjoining Sessions House, was erected in accorance with Act passed in 1781 'for building a new common gaol and sessions house, with accommodations thereto, for the county of Surrey.' The prison was, at the time of its erection, the largest prison in the county of Surrey and consisted of two portions , one occupied by debtors and the other much larger portion by people arrested on criminal charges. Charles Dickens came here on November 13th 1849 in order to see the crowd of spectators which regualarly formed at the time of a public execution and so gather materials for some of those vivid pictures of London life contained in his novels.

i prepared an exemplary presentation idea. simple black frames in order not to draw away from the surrounding building/area. optional captions for the residents to add comments.

i found a similar way of displaing/exhibiting work in this great book:

(Places with a past: New site specific art at Charleston's Spoleto Festival)

(from Five Rooms exhibition by Lorna Simpson and Alva Rogers)

Co Design / Community Collab

As we have agreed to go forward with the idea of the disposable cameras and handing them out to members of the local community, residents, shop owners and so forth here is some more research to explain the origin of the idea. I basically first heard about a similar approach in relation to codesign when we had the PDD lecture by live.work - company known for pioneering in the sector of co-,process- and service-design.

"The students completed the learning spaces survey and, as well - using a 24-exposure disposable camera - took photographs of the locations described in the learning space survey – e.g., favorite place for group work."

from: Participatory Co-Design: A Relationship Building
Approach for Co-Creating Libraries of the Future (.pdf)

Disposable camera.
Participants are sent disposable cameras and are asked to take pictures of things in their environment or things that appeal to them for certain reasons. They are asked to write comments about each picture. This technique delivers strong visual material and gives a lot of freedom to the participants. The ideal application of this method is to send disposable Polaroid cameras to the participants, because then the time between taking a picture and writing down the comments is kept short, and the reasoning is fresh.

from: Contextmapping - Experiences from Practice

Photo elicitation
In photo elicitation users can make photographs to describe their experiences in their own environment [3][10]. Later on, these photographs can be used to guide face-to-face
interviews. The photographs are particularly useful for people to recall their views and experiences and to comfort them during the interview. They are also a rich source of information. Disposable cameras, their own cameras and mobile phones that have a built-in camera can be used.

from: Enhancing Social Interaction and User Participation in the Development of Social Applications


Here disposable cameras are mentioned as part of a list for ethnographic research methods:
Interaction Design Association Discussion Boards


Further reading:

Collier, J. (1979). ‘Visual Anthropology in Wagner’, In
Images of Information. Beverly Hills, Ca: Sage.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. and Walker, M. (2003).
‘Happiness in everyday life: The uses of experience
sampling’, Journal of Happiness Studies, 4(1), pp. 185-
199

Disposable Cameras

Snap Happy camera from the 99p shop (£0.99p + £2.04 for 2 day processing)

Quick Snap camera from ASDA (£6.00 including one hour processing)


Results:
Snap Happy camera:


Quick Snap camera:


Although the 99p camera offers a better deal I think its reasonable to say we should go with the slightly more expensive ASDA camera. The 99p cam seems a little unreliable and often leaves traces/glitches/noise in the picture. Also the ASDA model comes with a handy one-hour processing deal.

No Ball Games

Found something similar to what i was thinking of doing with the signs:
Banksy got there first though :(

Sept 2009

Banksy

Tottenham Green East, North London 'No Ball Games"

next to roads with heavy traffic

another at Paddington station:
stencil, sprayed on underneath the sign