Design Study #2: Garbage Narrative

Map:


View Hatboro's Main Street in a larger map

Communications Method:

A cell phone will be the primary form of communication in this Locative Narrative. Text messages will be sent to numbers left on pieces of litter and an audio message from the person who left the garbage will be sent back to the participant's phone.

Instructions:

Much like Kaprow's happenings, the interactions of this project will depend completely upon audience interaction. The participants on both sides of the narrative are equally important and their participation is what drives the narrative forward.

The setup is that, prior to experiencing the narrative, people will have left pieces of litter along the way with their phone number scribbled on the side. The litter will be a piece of trash that the person feels defines them and that they can tell a story about or relate to themselves. Whenever someone who has left a piece of litter gets a text message that says "Who are you?" they will respond with a personal story or anecdote that relates to the object, themselves, or the place it was left.

The trigger points and the narrative are interwoven because the person who leaves the litter has the choice of where to leave it. Me, the designer, has nothing to do with the placement of the trigger points. It is all up to the participants. I feel like it is a way of getting to know the people behind the trash. I pass so much litter on a daily basis that I always wondered who was behind the litter? What was going through the person's head when they decided to litter? Is there any kind of dialogue between the litter leaver and the litter finder? What implications does this have? These are the questions I considered when designing this study.

Much like the ants we studied, people initially will start out walking around like chicken's with their heads cut off. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. However, over time, patterns will begin to emerge. Some places for leaving litter will be more popular than others. The type of trash left behind will start to have patterns emerge. There will be more and less common pieces of trash. Everything will depend on what came before it much like the life of an ant.

1. Walk up York road in Hatboro from Old Mill Inn to Daddypop's.
2. Search for pieces of litter along the sidewalk as you walk.
3. Pick up any pieces of litter you find and text "Who are you?" to the phone numbers scribbled on the sides of the pieces of litter.
4. Listen to the audio messages returned to your phone.
5. Find something in your pockets that you feel defines you at that particular moment.
6. Write your phone number on the side of the object and leave it in place of the litter you originally picked up.
7. Throw the original piece of litter away.
8. When someone texts "Who are you?" to your phone, send back an audio message telling a story about the object or about yourself or about the place you left the object.

Narrative:

The narrative of the study is based entirely on its participants. The stories held within the pieces of litter are entirely up to whoever left the piece of litter. It is all improvisational. The stories being told could be lies or not but they still function as an indication of the person behind the litter. For example, someone could have left a cigarette butt outside of Gamburg's Furniture on York road. Maybe the person was stressed out at work or had just gotten fired and was walking briskly and angrily through the streets. Maybe it was their last cigarette and they were so annoyed that they threw the butt to the ground in anger. It is all about the sense of discovery by the participants. It's like a scavenger hunt for finding out things about new, unknown people. Because of this improvisation and dependence on participants, the stories may be fragmented. It is not one, overarching narrative, but rather a narrative of fragmented narratives. It is all about getting to know something about people that you usually think very little about.

Assessment:

My project makes use of the place I've chosen because it is a fairly consistently busy shopping district. It's a small town main street where everyone is supposed to know one another, but they really don't. Despite the small size of the town, there is still a large barrier between people. It is designed as a storefront type town and shopping district where people can window shop as they walk by, but what about the people and the objects that you pass on the street? What do they tell you about other people, your environment, and yourself? The instructions help engage the participants with their environment and with their own identity and memory since they are the ones creating the narrative as well as being exposed to other people's narratives. This is much like Kaprow's happenings because it depends so heavily on audience participation. Also, elements of Algorithmic Psychogeography are also present within the study as it calls into question the setup of a town and how, despite its friendly environment, people are still so separate and unconnected to each other. It makes one consider how the architectural setup of a town and its social dynamics are not one in the same. The street starts to become part of the narrative because it is the page upon which the stories are being read from. It becomes a canvas for experiences and sharing and a form of personal art that depends wholly on the creator and what they want to share of themselves.