Framing Statement:
On 8th May 2015, 101 Uses of a Library Trolley is going to take place at the University of Lincoln Library. This performance is going from 9am to about 6.30pm, with the audience being able to see new and inventive ways to use a trolley. This makes the audience take away the fact they can be different and inventive in this library compared to the social standard of just working in a library and may make them think they can learn new things in creative ways. They may be able to even take part in in some activities like bowling and even our trolley race meaning they can experience the new ways with us.
Here is the link you YouTube to show the whole day of 101 Things to do with a Library Trolley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbS_O70DEl0
The University Of Lincoln Library
With having the Library as the space for our site specific piece, it can create a lot of ideas about the relationship the library has with students and what they bring to the library. The library shares relationships with supermarkets, food, creativity, stress and even the trolleys that carry the products around. When we started to explore the space you can start to see places that no one has been or seen. Or how a certain floor can have different atmosphere. When first think of ideas it’s easy to want to focus on these areas not many people really see or go, but as ideas started to develop it meant that we wanted to look at how the floors and bring these imaginative tasks with trolleys would bring to each floor of the library. This is why the library can be used for imaginative thinking. This is why we looked at doing these tasks and bring a stress relief (even though I am sure we might of created some more stress for some students) with 101 Things to do with a Library Trolley.
Developing Our Idea
When reading The Library of Bable it showed me that the libray can be this big universe that holds information and imagination. “The Libray contained all books, the first reaction was unbound joy. All men themselves the possessors an intact and secret treasure” (Borges, 1998, 115). This shows that it can hold different things that you might not necessity expect to have in a library. This did leads us to think of how a library trolley may hold these different life or character that a book may hold. This led us to be imaginative and made us make these trolleys in creative ways just like the author of a book does with the 26 letters to make it in to these books, and can explain why we wanted to look at 101 uses for a library trolley.
So why did we want to do something that is playful in a more serious environment of the library? Well we researched some practioner and we liked the ideas of Blast Theory, Cie Willi Dorner’s project and Dandelion Puff Productions. All of these look at the idea of being playful in different environments like a city centre or in our case of a University Library. All of these ideas combined gave us the influence to make our performance as playful as possible and to get people to see it and put a smile on their face even though it is not something they will probably ever see in a Library again.
Bring the theory with the practical:
When we are researching ideas that could help improve our 101 things to do with a trolley we looked at Cie Willi Dorner’s project ‘Bodies in an Urban Space’ (Cie.Willi Dorner, 2007). This performance saw a group of people using their bodies in unconventional ways to create a different perspective of an urban city. This is what we are planning with our use of the library trolleys make people think about the trolleys in an unconventional self and how they can complement our sight of the library.
This work also made us start to think about what we might wear ourselves, as in the video they stand out as they are in different colours but look in uniform so that people know they are part of the same performance. This is something we are going to start looking at if we want to blend in and people not notice us or if we are in uniform and people know it’s us who are the performers.
Another practioner we looked at for our idea was DANDELION PUFF PRODUCTIONS they “seek to let everyone be young and childlike at heart through productions which use humour, make-believe and imagination to bring stories to life.” (Bonell, 2014) This is very relevant to 101 ways to use a trolley as we have had to use our childlike imagination to think of 101 things. We hope to let this imagination rub off on to our audience around the library as it can be a very serious environment. Through looking at this company it helps use get ideas on how we as group might be able to rub off on to the environment around us and maybe even get some audience participation.
Our Process of how we came to 101 Things to do with a Trolley
Our process for this idea was for our group to think up of 25 things that you may do with a library trolley, even how strange of wacky they might be. Then the idea was that we had to do all of these in ways that we would not distract people too much and break the rules of the library. However the greater aim was that we had to all 101 things even if it did end up being a bit different to what people may think of when you tell them the idea. The list below shows the 101 Things to do with a Library trolley:
| Planking | Jake |
| Sleeping | Jake |
| Food Trolley | Paul |
| Chair | Paul |
| Dining Experience | Jake |
| Meditation | Sam |
| Conversations via the trolley | Jake |
| Wardrobe | Sam |
| Mime | Jake |
| Reading while riding | Sarah |
| Follow someone and use the trolley as a disguise. | Paul |
| To carry books | Sam |
| Funeral of a trolley. | Paul |
| To not push the trolley but get it around the floor in a way | Paul |
| Jousting | Paul |
| Make a musical instrument | Jake |
| Make Facebook on the go | Sam |
| Train trolley | Paul |
| Bag trolley | Sarah |
| Advice trolley | Sam |
| Music trolley | Jake |
| Doll house trolley | Sam |
| Inspiration trolley | Sam |
| Pick up trolley and carry it. | Jake |
| Check how you look trolley | Sam |
| Car trolley | Paul |
| Take it for a walk | Sam |
| Self-moving trolley | Paul |
| Hotel Trolley | Jake |
| Tolley conga | Paul |
| Trolley taxi | Jake |
| Replace the books with props | Sarah |
| Replace books with clothes | Sarah |
| Make the trolley a piece of art | Sarah |
| Paint while riding a trolley | Sarah |
| Have wrapped with a single piece of paper telling a story. | Sarah |
| Take trolley up and down the stairs | Jake |
| lift the trolleys like weights | Sarah |
| Stack the trolleys | Jake |
| Place the trolleys out side | Sarah |
| Wrap up the trolley with someone in it like a present | Sarah |
| Wrap it up with newspaper | Sarah |
| Just walk around with them | Sarah |
| Secret mail | Sarah |
| Dancing with it as your partner | Paul |
| Waiting staff trolley | Sam |
| Construction sight trolley | Sarah |
| Curling | Paul |
| Bowling | Paul |
| Use it as an canoe | Paul |
| Create a rowing team | Paul |
| Use as a sun bed | Sam |
| Building a fort | Sam |
| Pac man, as the person with the trolley was Pac man and the rest had to find him as he picked up books. | Jake |
| Composing a poem as riding a trolley | Sam |
| Writing a book while riding a trolley and explaining your ride | Jake |
| Tetris with books | Sam |
| Homemade theatre system | Paul |
| Dodgems | Paul |
| Taking selfies with the trolley | Sam |
| Play football | Jake |
| Pushing it upside down | Jake |
| Obstacle course | Jake |
| Hiding with it | Sam |
| Thumb wrestling arena | Paul |
| Nerf gun shield | Jake |
| Card game centre | Paul |
| Magic station | Paul |
| William Shake shelf | Sam |
| Aeroplane trolley | Paul |
| Trolley bin | Jake |
| Collect objects around the library to make art in the trolley | Sarah |
| Barricade with trolleys | Jake |
| Trolley wash | Sarah |
| Re-create classic film scenes with the trolley as your set | Sam |
| Tea trolley | Paul |
| Yoga trolley | Sarah |
| Wedding of the trolleys. | Sam |
| Brake down trolley | Jake |
| Cuddly toy zoo trolley | Sam |
| First aid trolley | Sam |
| Replace the books with food on the shelves. | Sarah |
| Wrap up the trolley like a parcel at the post office. | Sarah |
| Movie quote | Sam |
| University facts | Sam |
| Great literature trolley | Sarah |
| Essay while Riding | Sam |
| Surfing | Paul |
| Safari | Paul |
| Steps that you have to go over. | Paul |
| Maze | Jake |
| Shoes Shelf | Sam |
| Books out play dough | Sarah |
| Trolley race outside. | Jake |
| Tools trolley | Jake |
| Rehearsing a play | Jake |
| Go everywhere with it. | Sarah |
| Fish – Aquarium | Sarah |
| Comments about the performance | Sarah |
| Stationary on the go | Paul |
| Wrapping trolley in toilet paper | Sarah |
Rehearsals and Trail Run of our idea:
Through our process of rehearsal we had to think how we could practically use these trolleys in a safe way but still have the element of fun without it crossing over with danger. For example on of the ideas is stacking the trolleys. But we had to make sure that this was done in a safe way where we or not members of the public would get hurt. We had a play around and looked how we may be able to do this and we managed to do it and here is an example you can see below.
Here are two links to two videos that show some of rehearsals and you can see how they changed and to what happened on the day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LsJaYPQu0M&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YplA5JkFHuk
Also with these different tasks we had to look at where in the Library we may do them, this meant practising different ones in different locations and seeing how well they may work there. We had to think that the louder ones like playing football has to be done either on the ground floor as they that floor is more torrent to noise happening, but some we can do that are quite that will happen on the third floor so that every bit of this library get a piece of 101 things to do with a library trolley. We also started to look more practically at the trolleys and how we can use them in a safe and practical way.
The Day of 101 Thing to do with a Library.
The day seem to come around fast, the meet up of that week happened every day to do more practical work to make sure everything worked, checking the list and making any changes that needed to happen. Making sure we had permission from the library members to do everything and getting the props we needed from the LPAC props cupboard that would help create the trolleys have some characters.
The morning of the 10th of May came we got there for half 8 to sort out all of our equipment that was needed and put them in our base room of group room 3. The start of 101 Things to do with a Library trolley happened at 9:30. The start of the day came very smoothly and we quickly realised, that we had planned 10minutes for each task we had to do, which turns out that we had planned too much time and that it was only taking 5 minutes. The reason we had planned 10 minutes was due to the fact that if any problems did come up we could solve them and still have time to complete the task. But due to us fixing most of the problems in the rehearsals it left us running about 20minutes ahead of schedule.
The problem that happened during our performance was a bout 1pm when we were going to do jousting, we were told by the librarian that they were lots of complaints of us annoying students and that if we got any more we would have to stop and we would not be able to complete our goal of having 101 things. So while we started to set up for another task we had to converse on how we were going to solve this problem. This meant we had to go to more remote locations in the library such as near the stair well or even the corridor that was outside our room. This is so people could still see the 101 things but they were not squeaking or being distracting to other students in the library. We also had to change some of the list around so that if they were loud ones they were not going out straight after another, giving the students some time to enjoy the quite library. Even with this, we manage to do 101 things with a library trolley without being forced to stop. Meaning our goal of this performance was met.
After it was finished we were asked what we would have done differently if we had to do it again. Well even though we had rehearsed with the different trolleys it still did not make them quite. If we had known how many complaints of the trolleys being too loud we may have had to rethink how we could have used them in different ways to make them quite. Which can be ever hard when they sometimes like to be quite and then loud. So personally I believe that if were to do this again we would just have to put up more signs so that students did know this was happening, we did have posters but maybe if we had even more it may of made people be more torrent to what was happening on that day.
Evaluation of the day:
Even though they were complaints they were other students who were interested in what we were doing. Some would laugh while doing their work, which is nice due to them giving us encouraging smiles that kept us going for the day. People would even come up to us and ask what we were doing and if that task involved audience participation they would want to join in. As in the Trolley Taxi (which is in the montage of the whole day video) where a member of the public wanted a lift to our base to see what else we were doing. One person even told us some of the things she was thinking that you could do with these trolleys, which some were new and completely different to what we had thought of. This makes me think that we instead of us making the list we could of asked the library what they would have done and they could have created out list.
The costume that we had was bright colours like that had been mentioned before, we wanted to still look like normal people but in more bright colours so people knew who were, but due to us still looking normal I created the 101 things to do with a library trolley before we did the performance. This was tapped to the trolley so people did know what was happening with these trolleys. I believed this worked better than the bright colours as people could clearly see what was happening which is what we wanted to achieve. The only problem was because we only had the flags on the day we had not practiced with them on. So when stacking the trolleys happened it because a problem as the flag hit the ceiling and this meant the stacking did not go as we had planned, but still managed to do it without breaking anything. This shows that the flags did work but we should have rehearsed some with them to make sure they was going to be practical, but saying this is was only a problem of two out of the one hundred and one.
So overall I do believe that 101 things to do with a library trolley was a success when looking at the whole day. Even though they we problems that came about we managed to solve these while completing 101 tasks. Even now looking back on it they is something I would do differently like making sure everyone knows that this performance is going to be distracting but make it work in our favour rather than against us. I would also look how we could make the trolleys quite, this was one of the biggest complaints we had, but due to the nature of the trolley we did not have anything to try and make them quite. However people also enjoyed it and put a bit of playfulness in what is a normally as stressful place and I do believe playfulness did come in to this library. And the students whether good or bad will remember when they saw 101 uses of a Library Trolley.
Here is the link you YouTube to show the whole day of 101 Things to do with a Library Trolley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbS_O70DEl0
By Samantha Foster!
Work Cited.
Blast Theory. (2015) Chronology. [Online] Brighton. Available from: http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/our-work/. [Accessed 12th March 2015].
Bonell, L. (2014) Dandelion Puff Productions. [Online] London: House Theatre. Available from: http://housetheatre.org.uk/companies/dandelion-puff-productions/ [Accessed 31st March 2015].
Borges, L. (1998) The Library of Babel. New York: Penguin.
Cie. Willi Dorner. (2007) Bodies in an Urban Space. Available from: http://www.ciewdorner.at/index.php?page=work&wid=26). [Accessed 31st March 2015].