Would like some help, advice and ideas!

[amberrosemary]

Hi guys,
I have literally just come across this Forum and thought it would be a great place to maybe try and bounce some ideas around for me.

So, I am currently a Third year at Portsmouth university studying photography and am loving it! Im part way through a new project and have become a little stuck for ideas! Time is short and I have spent hours banging my head against the wall trying to come up with something.

My project centres around Space and Location, what I have come up with so far is to try and disrupt a public area by placing a random object within it and photographing the reaction to it. So far I have photographed a few places around the city, The first place I left an exercise ball, hid myself off and waited. The reaction to that was great, so many people of different ages and backgrounds ect began to interact. I have also used a goldfish bowl (without any real fish) on a plinth and also a vase full of flowers. Again I have found quite good results with these but I don't feel they are interactive enough!

I Might also add that I am using Medium Format colour film for this project, mainly because I love the clearness in the images and also that kind of documentary feel to the end result.

So yeah, any advice and ideas would be massively appreciated.


Thanks, Amber

 

[Teflon-Mike]

Interesting Idea... and lots of scope to build on it.
Does your college have a performing arts faculty?
Any-one in there got an assignment you can double up with?

My aunt is an actress, and one christmas, gave my youngest, toddler son a toy 'doodle-dog'... you're probably young enough to have one yourself! But, she used a little ventriloquism to make this toy 'bark', and completely won over my two and a half year old... only bludy trouble was for the next three days after she had gone home, I had him thrusting the dang thing at me "Daddy - Make Bark! Make Bark! It BWOKE..... need batweees!"*

Idea springs, perhaps some street performance; human statue kind of stuff; pantomime, perhaps; rather than a static object.

What sort of 'You've Been Framed' set-up can you create? Err... what about a new Council street sweeping initiative, and get a freind with half a dozen brooms and a hat to try handing them out and asking passers by to just sweep this bit of the square as they pass? Or something like that...

Otherwise? Well, its a variation on the 50p piece glued to the floor, isn't it?

Pranksters Hand-Book? Photo-copy of a £20 note on a fishing line some-one reels accross the square? Or variations there-of... what about a hot-dog that 'escapes', or something like that.

There's also the immortal, 'searching the sky' gag... stand (or get assistant to stand) in middle of public square and just look up.... wait and see how many people stop and start looking to see what they are looking at... could be a sequence in that one.

Or returning to the static, just getting more bizare... how weird an object can you set up or display in a public place? (Without getting arrested!)

What could you do with an old artificial Christmas tree, and a load of old baby toys to hang from it?

Carnival 'Strong Man' mallet bell thing; you know where you have to smack the pad to send a weight up the scale to ring the bell... Can you get hold of something like that? Stick a sign on it that says "Ring For Assistance" and put it next to a public toilet... then for real laughs, get a friend in a wheel-chair to sit next to it, holding the mallet, making feeble attempts to ring the bell.... see who bites!

Here you go..... variation on the 50p stuck to the floor! Mobile Phone, glued to a bench.... wait till some-one is sitting on the bench, or passing by, and RING the phone! See what they do! Will they ignore it? Will they stand next to it looking round and pointing at it? Will they try and pick it up? Will they answer it? If they do, and are bent over so they can hear what you are saying, tell them to look towards you and smile, as you press the shutter!

I THINK the answer here, is that some juvinile practical joke books might prove reasonable research!

You could get EVIL with this one! Your a student! How 'silly' can you get with it? Thats what being a students supposed to be about, isn't it?

Have FUN!

*For those over 40.... where has the nievety of childhood been lost?

 

[Forbiddenbiker]

Make this....

One small metal cage with a fifty pound note in it, suspended in chains within another tough metal cage about 3ft sq....also chained to a lamp post. (google steel rock cage, buy one and get a welder to reinforce it)

No cutting tools and no hydraulic tools allowed, but any other leaver or hammer of whatever size can be used to get the fifty pound note out. ... supply a few small crow bars and hammers.

I'd choose a busy market full of working men n women who are already sweaty and not put off by some physical labour.

Make a sign up explaining the rules and a start time, (possibly an end time for each attempt also) then stand back and shoot some serious action.