Samantha Foster – Page 2 – SITE SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE

Food for knowledge test run!

Samantha Foster / February 24, 2015April 20, 2015 / Main Page

IMG_20150218_132651 — Josh looking for the answer my question. In the Merry Wives of Windsor what are the mistresses names?

IMG_20150218_132908 — Looking for the answer 😀

On Wednesday, 18 February we were asked to do a trail run of our idea piece that are to perform in our site-specific location of the library. Through a miniature version of our performance we decided that we were going to give people questions to find the answer to questions about certain library books. If they found the answer within a certain amount of time (10 minutes were allocated) they were given a piece of fruit or sweets as a reward. Finding knowledge and getting rewarded with food became quite a fun game to play in the library as lots of students like munching when writing essays in the library.

To help support our idea we started looking at Blast Theory. (Blast Theory, 2015). Blast theory looks at the concept of using site-specific work by the use of games. There was an example of “Can You See Me Now” where they used real-life people and people playing online. It was a big game of “ hide and go seek”. This example shows that a game can be used in a big city environment and shows that shows the link that people can have with computers in everyday life.

We were asked why we want to look at the link of food and knowledge. Our answer is that food is a basic necessity and that in modern society knowledge is becoming one of the key factors of everyday life as well. In this University library trial run, these two crossed over in more ways than people realise. Nowadays when we study we use food as a reward after we’ve done a certain amount of work and if we can make students use the old way of finding knowledge, by just using a library book and no technology and reward them with food, they may go away from this experience with a new information without them realising it – due to them being rewarded with a basic everyday thing that is food.

The feedback that we got on our trial run is that fellow students were asking how it would be done. We were looking at using one of the library group rooms or some empty library shelves to indicate our base. Once a question was answered correctly and the ‘contestant’ picked his food reward from the shelf, the empty space would be filled with the book where the information had been found from. Then this shows the sources of information the participants had used to gain the answers for the day by the use of the reward of food.

Blast Theory. (2015) Chronology. [Online] Brighton. Available from: http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/our-work/. [Accessed 12^th March 2015].

Samantha Foster.

Drawing’s from Different Perspectives.

Samantha Foster / February 10, 2015February 25, 2015 / Tasks

When I was first given my drawing of part of the library it was just a drawing of a sign. I decided that I would re-draw the sign but try and do it the same, a copy, just as books in the library are the same if they are a copy of the same book. This shows that even the library signs are in unison just like copies of books.

For my third perspective I was thinking about food and how the library and food have a relationship. I know that our library only has food zones. You cannot eat near the books or the computers. This made me start to think about how we need food to enable us to be productive and mentally access the information within the book to enhance our knowledge. So my idea for the third perspective was that food is our highway to knowledge, that I could portray a book with food around the edge as if the food has fallen out the book. This shows that food and knowledge are inter-dependable so it is vital to eat on the search for knowledge. Food zones in a library are a necessity.

After I completed the task I thought about how libraries and supermarkets are laid out. They are very similar with certain foods, in supermarkets, being displayed in certain sections just as books in a library are in different reference sections. It would be interesting if these two building could be put together to see how we can make food and the library work together.

Samantha Foster.

Artistic Book

Samantha Foster / February 10, 2015February 10, 2015 / Tasks

After some research to look at an artistic book and to use my own book titles. I thought about one title that I thought that I could create a none conventional book. The book title was Growth of a Flower. I then looked at the use of paper. I found some paper that had different images of a girl growing up in to a women. This was going to be the outside of my book, with a flower flowing out of it. Showing the growth of a person like a flower.

This idea can also show the relationship between nature and paper, the source that books are made out of. The flower that is made out of paper shows the transformation of a tree that was nature that had been changed in to paper and then changed back in to a flower. So it would be interesting to explore this idea of nature and the paper of a book.

Samantha Foster.

My Thoughts in the Library Stairwell:

Samantha Foster / January 30, 2015February 25, 2015 / Main Page

It is much colder in here than in the actual library. The door opens. I bet he thinks I am quite weird sitting on the stairs writing notes compared to sitting in the library. He ran up so he must be in a rush. I don’t really feel that I am actually part of the library here. I feel like I am more outside in the cold, well that is because it’s really cold here. Oh, they are two more people coming up. I think they are Chinese. They passed me, they looked at me in a weird way too. Oh look! It’s trying to snow again, better not settle. What was that? Oh, it’s the door but I don’t hear any footsteps. They must have forgotten something.

This is just some of my thoughts from sitting in the library stairwell. It was very interesting to see how the stairwell is used and the different people who go up and down depending on whether they were in a rush or not. It was also interesting to observe how, even though I was part of the library sitting there, I didn’t really feel a part of the conventional library atmosphere where people are in there to work. It felt like I was outside walking into the library and not within the building itself.

Samantha Foster