This project considered communicating with the outsider, the inarticulate, communicating with the inside and communication through form. Participants were Beth Elliott, Director of Bethlem Gallery, Simon Grennan, Artist, Professor Sukhi Shergill and Dr Rosalind Arden both from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's.
Example of a 'cultural entity'
The project:
- Person One: choose an entity (entity = an object that embodies profound cultural meaning, subjectively determined. Distinct from an object made meaningful by personal association only)
- Write and retain a report on the entity's meaningfulness to you (up to 100 words). Document this report in any other way you wish. Do not pass this report to anyone else at this stage.
- Pass your chosen entity to the next person in the chain (see 'Participants' for different project rounds).
- Person Two: receive Person One's entity and reflect upon its meaningfulness.
- Write and retain a report on Person One's entity's meaningfulness to you (up to 100 words). Document this report in any other way you wish. Do not pass this report to anyone else at this stage.
- Choose a new entity of your own, your choice being based upon your response to Person One's entity.
- Write and retain a report on your entity's meaningfulness to you (up to 100 words). Document this report in any other way you wish. Do not pass this report to anyone else at this stage.
- Pass your chosen entity to the next person in the chain
- On the conclusion of the Round, all entities, reports and documentation will be shared.
The group created a chain of material objects that were linked to each other through some relational process. Each object was documented by either itself or an image of the object, a short text, a biographical note on the person who chose the object, and any other contextual materials that communicated the giver or reciever's intentions or responses.
The idea behind this project was 'change and transformation' which involved Sue Lawther, formerly the Director of Spread the Word, Marina Benjamin, a writer for and Senior Editor of Aeon Magazine, Ulrike Naumann, formerly a Statistician in the Institute of Psychiatry at King's, and Chiara Nosarti, Neuroscientist at King's.
Participants felt that 'change and transformation' was a chief goal in their own profession and a natural meeting point. The group thus devised a way of working together that would give shape to this leading idea, using a combination of statistical analysis, the mapping of brain function, and creative writing.
The workings of the brain suggests that change and transformation is a continual learning process. It relies on input from the senses, but also on a constant willingness to update and refine what we know on the basis of new experience and information. The brain develops and grows via a series of dynamic mechanisms that can be compared to a feedback loop. It processes information from the world and then uses that information to improve on its own processing capability. As new information is processed, it adjusts its understanding of not only the current information/situation but also of all previous knowledge. The group decided to model their experiment on this feedback loop.
For their experiment, participants chose a text created by a group of young people working with Cardboard Citizens (a theatre company renowned for its work with people who have experienced homelessness) because they felt this specific text spoke to the project theme of transformation and change:
'The wind is like a train that I can't stop
Riding down that track with my head held high
The wind is like a train that I just can't stop.
Driving me away from the life I know
It's a track that I keep running
And I just can't stop.
It's a track that I keep running
And I just can't stop.'
Excerpt from Life Ain't No Musical by Cardboard Citizens
Ulrike submitted the text to a statistical analysis that assigned numbers to each word, as well as the number of times each word appeared. She then ranked the words accordingly and the word that appeared less often was numbered 78 (78 words being a pragmatic choice for a workable sample).
The group then used a randomizing process that sorted through the numbers and plucked out a series of numbers that could be uses as coordinates for brain-mapping. Because the brain is a 3-0 organ, 3 individual co-ordinates are needed to map a specific point within its mass. The randomiser's first three numbers gave one specific location, the second three numbers gave another location, and the third set gave the third and final location in the brain.
The group took a closer look at what those very specific areas of the brain did - including learning some basic details about research relating to those brain functions. Finally, Marina Benjamin was given the challenge of writing a creative response to the original text, Life Ain't No Musical, incorporating the new knowledge gained from the project outcomes.
Much of this process was deliberately random. The group could have started with any text and could have found a million different ways to generate numbers to use as co-ordinates to pinpoint areas of the brain. Marina could have been given any number of different ways to use the stimuli we created in this process. However, a specific path was chosen and the participants found meaning in it with Marina saying she found the challenge liberating, not inhibiting, and her response is emotional and touching, as well as challenging in the context of the original piece of writing from Cardboard Citizens.
For this project a group came together with a common interest in how 'place' is approached and articulated, and how these might be challenged and/or explored in different ways. Additionally participants were interested in exploring the relationship between virtual and physical space. The group included Rafau Sieraczek, musician, Sarah Butler, writer, Sheryll Catto, Co-director of Action Space, and Max Saunders, Professor of English at King's.
'A State of Flux' credit: Rafau Sieraczek
The group devised a two stage experiment. Stage 1 involved each member selecting a specific place (which they had never visited before) on the Isle of Dogs. Participants explored each space virtually and responded to it in writing/image/video, sharing these responses within the group. Members then visited each site in person on and reflected on their approaches to the places and the relationship between experiencing these places virtually and physically.
This led to Stage 2, where the group dedicated a longer period of time to exploring one place in particular. The group asked RSA partners Georgina Chatfield and Jocelyn Cunningham to select a place and Templar Church in central London was chosen. Again members of the group each explored the location virtually and then spent two full days physically in the space, playing with different ways to explore and articulate this area of London. Participants created (and copied) different 'exercises' and approaches from an 'eye walk' to a 'phone walk' and used G PS mapping to think more about the relationship between thevirtual and the physical.
The group used sound, image and text to capture their thoughts and experiences:
It was a long night; phone numbers were exchanged. We slip out of concentric circles, drop through a corner. The people here have polished shoes, bags on wheels, and keys that clink - they carry lunch in neat paper bags. It has an Oxbridge air, this manicured square with its perfect blooms and vine-twined arches. The fonts have been thought about. Behind the fountain, red tape and bike racks -if there's a walkie-talkie on your belt you can climb over, otherwise, keep out. Cobbles beneath your feet, the sky green with leaves. Your legs reflected as you walk, in someone else's office window. He sits by the fountain and wishes things were different. The headiness of white flowers, harassed by bees; the insistence of running water. Pins in an empty notice-board. At the edges the world continues - scaffolding and trucks, coffee and umbrellas. Gold filigree. Through the glass, a man looking for teabags. Green copper. Fresh paint. The rain drawing dot to dot on the stone. It is against the law to smoke in this passageway, yet I can smell it. Pink shirts. Blue. She hangs on the lamppost: 'if it falls through, I'll let you know ...... he's so desperate to sell it.....'glasses on her head and high-heeled shoes. A door slams. Another cigarette lit. The light reflects. Iron. The curve of a staircase too. I choose the tunnel. Glaze cracked off the bricks. The sound of their voices deepens. The shuffle of someone else's steps. The disappointment of glass, and, already, the traffic of outside.
A text written during an exploratory walk around Temple, London. Credit: Sarah Butler
The fourth group included Simon Tanner from the Department of Digital Humanities at King's, lnua Ellams who is a poet, playwright and performer, and David Slater, Director of Entelechy Arts.
The aim of this project was to design an experiment based on lnua's project, The Midnight Run. The Midnight Run is a journey of discovery through London at night over 12 hours, from 6pm to 6am. lnua describes its conception:
'One autumn evening in 2005, a friend and I lost patience waiting for a bus and on a whim decided to walk the bus's route. Six hours later we'd drifted across London from Battersea to Chelsea, Victoria, Vauxhall, the west end into the small hours of the morning. Surprised at how fresh and energised we felt, marvelling at the deserted streets of the city, without its hustle and bustle: the peace and tranquillity of a deserted Oxford Street, being able to glance up without fear of hitting or being hit by something, discovering beautiful side streets, small courtyards, parks, I recreated it in summer the following year, for 12 hours, from 6pm to 6am and The Midnight Run was born.'
Thus the group curated two journeys across the city. The first was for lnua's established and expanding group of Midnight Runners, the second was a miniature version for a small group of elders who worked creatively with Entelechy. Two journeys pausing, passing and playing by iconic places and spaces in the city.
The Runs were given a context and an experimental basis by exploring the themes raised in Simon's framework of five Modes of Cultural Value: option value, prestige value, education value, existence value and bequest value. Participants explored the resonance of specific sites along the journey to those modes and whether other values emerged as well. The experiment took the form of qualitative data gathering during the Midnight Runs when they passed into the zone of a space or building that epitomises either literally or metaphorically a particular mode of cultural value.
Data gathering was done through group exercises/games, questioning individual participants informally and by observation. The structure allowed for an element of play, taking a chance, trying something new and experimenting with active participative research methods.
For lnua and David the experiment created space to explore how The Midnight Run might be used to engage themes of place, ownership, citizenship and social change in a seamless manner with runners (and walkers) of different ages and backgrounds.
'The Midnight Run with Entelechy elders' credit: Edwin Mingard.