Reflection Report

Precident Analysis

Drawing of what we would've done differently from class

Reflection on our market

Overall I think the market went really well.

Setting up, we initially had just the tables with fabric over them, but then we found some sticks from a previous market that we combined with stools so that we could rig up some bunting (leftover from a previous market, and some from the vibes team). Then we found a roll of cardboard to put in front of the tables which made our entrance link more to the internal decorations.

We were worried about having a bottleneck when people came in, and also between markets when people were both leaving and entering, but it turned out to work a lot better than expected. We managed to get the bag drop working really fast, and only the first stream ended up doing that – everyone else didn’t bring bags, which meant there was no stress about that. The booklets worked well too – the people who used the bag drop brought them back, because that was the system we used, but nobody else did – and we had about the right amount left for the next stream. In the end we only had about 8 left, which we recycled.

The fact that the entrance and exit were in the same place worked in our favour, since a lot of people went in the last stall before they were finished – and then they just went inside again, so the flow of it worked quite well.

Final Video

Creative Industries - Market of Abandoned Materials 

This video is to show people an overview of what our market was and what it meant with its themes and ideas. It goes through the process from the start of the video with the waste streams, to the group meetings and the organisation with trail markets etc. To the development and production of groups products right through to the end product our market, the set up and the entire market overall. 

I think this video is a good representation of the market and I feel as though it gives a good overview of our actual market on the day and how much of a success it was.

Timelapse videos of entrance

Our market Waste Streams

Where is our stuff going after the market?

The booklets - They are all made of paper, in the second stream we will be giving them away to the people and not specifically asking for them returned, if they are returned we will give them to any stalls in our stream and if no-one is wanting to keep them then we will recycle them as they are all made with card and paper that can be recycled.

The fabric - The fabric we have used is sheets and fabric which has been thrown out, after this some members in our group are wanting the material to use so they will take it back.

The t-shirts - We are going to take them and continue to wear them as a souvenir of our market place.

The signs - Our signs are made of paper which we will put in the recycling to continue its life cycle.

Final Prep for Market

Creating final signs we need for the entrance to show people where they can drop off their bags and items, and the direction to enter, also where to return your booklets at the end -

I used paper left over from the booklet making which was scraps from one of my classes to make these signs, the strips of paper holding the letters together were taken from between the letters.

Market Plan for tomorrow:

We are all ready for the market tomorrow and all have our roles and tasks. We have decided to meet between 7.30 and 8am to start setting up and getting ready for our market.

It is also really important we get some videos of the market set up as well so we really haven't missed any of the progress over the market paper and that we as the marketing team successfully documented the market.

We have systems in place to along with the organising team to monitor numbers through the market to ensure health and safety. We are handing out one book between two people to ensure that there isn't over 170 people in the space at any one time - which is the maximum allowed.
When there will be queue's we will make sure people are standing on the right of the stairs queueing upwards so that there is room on the left for people to get out and down as this flows better. We will also be handing out the booklets on the stairwell so people can read before they enter the market.

We have as people enter someone handing out carry bags to collect all the items they will receive.

The books have the market map and people will follow them throughout the market. We also welcome people to write in them any feedback or random information in the books.

We have one person to welcome and one person to say thanks as people leave, this is important to address everyone as it is the last point of access for people before they leave.

Map + Flow Idea

This is the Market of Immaterial Labour's floors plan, showing how the space was to be set up, as well as the flow of traffic within the market. I thought it was interesting to have a plan set up, and while many people didn't follow the specific line of arrows, I thought it could be interesting to look at how we could go about putting up a map that shows our ideas on how the movement around the market area will look. 

T-shirt Making- Zoe

As the team who is welcoming and farewelling the participants of our market, we thought a great idea would be to have t-shirts that would help identify who we are on entering and leaving the market. Laya and I went and found 5 grey t-shirts at various op-shops, as a way to recycle an 'abandoned material.' We decided on a colour that was commonly found in the op-shops, as way to tie all the t-shirts together and make it easier for us to search for t-shirts in plain colour. Each t-shirt was a couple of dollars each, and will either be re-donated to an op-shop as a way of recycling, or will be kept or passed on to others who would like to have one of the t-shirts. 

I started out by hand-cutting the template out of some left over card that I had from past artventures. I decided hand-cutting the template would reduce the amount of waste and power that printing or laser cutting a template would take. The template was to be based off the markets name 'Wasted: The market of Abandoned Materials', and I thought it would look quite cool to have the words replicating that of a recycling symbol (3 arrows forming a continuous circle) I drew out a couple of ideas that could be used to replicate the symbol, and decided on a very simple one that could be easily read by people only moving through our welcoming space in a matter of seconds. While drawing out the template design, I had the idea to make the 'd' in wasted pointed, so as to replicate the arrows on the symbol. I felt like this represented the aim of the market better. 

Kate had some black spray paint leftover from an old uni project which we ended up using to transfer the template pattern onto the t-shirts. When doing it, I found that holding the spray can closer to the shirt made a crisper line after the template was removed, as some of the shirts ended up with a feathered effect around the edges of some of the letters. While this wasn't the look I was trying to achieve initially, I ended up liking how it looked as I thought it added to the idea of an 'imperfect market.' (abandoned materials being reused) 

In the end I really like how they turned out. The simplicity of the design and colour of the t-shirt and paint makes the symbol easy to read and represents what our market is trying to achieve with taking the old, abandoned objects and making them into something new that can be reused and recycled. 

 

(I've had an issue with uploading for a while, as my laptop had crashed and removed me from the blog for some unknown reason. Only just figured it out again and was able to be re-added to the blog. I thought it best this was mentioned, as the t-shirts were made earlier than my post now, it was just unable to be uploaded.) 

Bag drop tags

I made these tags to put on bags/coats if people want to leave them with us. the numbers correspond to the numbers on the booklets.

I made the numbers in different colours to make it easier to find a specific one - eg 1-10 are red, 11-20 are black and so on. I also used the string I got from the secrets group from the last market as ties.

Market of Immaterial Labours Critique- Zoe Mitchell

Market Critique- Zoe Mitchell

In Michael Hardts ‘Affective Labor,’ it is stated, “The other face of immaterial labor is the affective labor of human contact and interaction.” (95) This is what I perceived as the mode of exchange used in The Market of Immaterial Labors. All of the stalls provided an exchange of human interaction as their key objective, whether it is by giving a gift to each participator, or exchanging something with them. While there wasn’t a dominant theme or visual connection between each of the stalls, I believe that each stall connected back to the overall idea of exchanging an action or gift, which created a high level of interaction between everyone within the market.

One of the most enjoyable stalls was the Quilt making stall, where each participator designed a square that was then sewn into a quilt to be given to the Wellington Children’s Hospital. The exchange of labor to create a gift could then be given to a good cause, creating human connection outside of the market aswell. Each participator was then rewarded by receiving a coffee in exchange for their labour.

Another stall used the exchange of knowledge that returned to you in the form of a gift- in this case being a ‘tattoo’. By giving in knowledge of interests, they then gave back to the participator in the form of a stamp on their hand representing that knowledge given.

A third was the ‘beach de-stress’ where a cup of lemonade was given in exchange for writing down something stressful in life. The participator was then directed to a ‘beach’ area where they could relax and let go of the stress.

The mode of exchange added to the overall enjoyment of the market, leaving participators with a happy smile on their faces. Each stall demonstrated the use of gift giving and interaction, which ultimately I felt was what made the market an affective form of labour.

My Critique of Immaterial Labours Market

"This is the most immediate sociological and anthropological implication of the passage of economic paradigms. Information, communication, knowledge and affect come to play a foundational role in the production process." (M. Hardt 2003 )

From the reading I assume that the market place I will be walking into will focus more on the exchange of feelings, memories or thoughts for some form of reward in return be it information or knowlege.

Overall at the entrance of the immaterial labours market we were welcomed by caution tape and construction site equipment. This gave the impression the we would be working for a reward and providing the ‘labour’ in a form of time banking. However overall the system of exchange was information or feelings  such as stress, secrets or a personal memories, in exchange for a gift. This worked well however not all groups had the same system of exchange, e.g. one group had a quilt which was given to someone else and it did not feel like exchange but time banking for someone else benefit. As Hardt states most services are based on the exchange of ideas and information which benefits both parties involved. Therefore, I feel like the quilt group followed the theme of immaterial labours the best as participants passed on their creative ideas by designing a panel. Participants were given a reward in the form of  hot beverage but the end product would be given to a children's hospital thus continuing the transfer of ideas.

Overall there was a variety of different offerings, however a few market stalls did not actively  participants in and few explained how they had interpreted the brief.  One of the strongest stalls in my opinion was in the dark room as participants we worked for our own reward, You had to spin the wheel and provide lighting thus giving your own energy, time and belongings to produce our own reward - the film as seen in the image below.

The final offering which I believe expressed immaterial labours in a unique was was the secrets group, participants would remove the burden of keeping a secret and the reward was a feeling of acceptance as all secrets could be viewed anonomously. 

The overall flow of the market worked very well as we did not wait in a queue and could go to whatever stall we wanted whenever we wanted.

Continued Video Progression

Video Progress:

I have continued developing the video further to show and express what the overall market is. The video shows now the progress that the abandoned materials stream has undertaken to create and get to the current pre-market position.

I have filmed my personal waste streams and included that in the video and used the four groups which supplied us videos of them creating their products. This is looking and illustrating without the voice over what the market has come from and developed to and where the collective is now heading into our final week before our real market.

This video fades out at the end where I will add in videos from our actual market this up-coming Wednesday.

Creative Industries - Pre Market video editing progress from Kristen Mabey on Vimeo.

Finished booklets

I finished writing the fact for the last two stalls in all my booklets and added the maps. I also numbered the back of all of them - so we can use them to exchange for bags/coats.

Lecture 10 - Group Discussion and Meetings

Meeting with Facilitators and Vibes teams:

To organise and suss this week:

- Plastic Bags for the bags to hand out to people
- Numbers for people handing in bags etc. - numbers on booklets
- Fully finish booklets
- Refine video
- Zoe give the other team the stencil
- Layout/decoration and collaborating with vibes for decorations

Roles for group members on Wednesday:

Kristen -
Kate -
Laya -
George -
Zoe -

Critique review

The market of immaterial labours didn't have much of a flow - which was good and bad. it meant that if there was a line at a stall, you could just go to another one, but also I felt it removed some of the market feel - there were a lot of empty spaces and I ended up walking back and forth a lot. I also felt like there wasn't as much of an atmosphere  throughout the whole market - it felt like the stalls were very separate. If the construction theme from the entrance/exit was more incorporated on the inside of the market, that might have helped.

Although they were generally all interesting and entertaining, it wasn't always apparent how the stalls related to immaterial labours. Most of them generally involved doing something - sometimes this involved thinking or problem solving (a symbolic-analytical service) but some didn't, for example the drawing ones. Other stalls had human contact and interaction - for example mindsketch, where they draw your conversation with the stall member,

 or the pillow talk stall - having a conversation with another marketgoer about a topic. I found that a lot of the stalls didn't really communicate how their stall fitted with the theme, or what their system of exchange was. In some, the thing you made would be given or exchanged, (like the quilt to the children's hospital, which was apparently in exchange for coffee/tea but I wasn't told that)

 but for the most part it wasn't obvious. Aside from the fact that it wasn't always obviously related to the theme, I found the stalls to be engaging and interesting. I especially liked the choose your own adventure stall because the story was fun. I also thought the beach/relaxing one was a good use of the space and was interesting for all the senses.

Group Review Critic - Kristen, Laya, Kate, George, Zoe

Market of Immaterial Labours – Reviewer/Critic – Team 38 Kristen, Laya, Kate, George, Zoe

In the Market of Immaterial Labours, “information, communication, knowledge and affect come to play a fundamental role in the production process” (Hardt, 93).  Although the stalls generally involved some kind of labour – making or doing something, thinking or problem solving, and/or interacting with people, they often didn’t communicate this clearly enough. We felt that they weren’t cohesive enough with the entrance/exit theme, and there wasn’t as much of an atmosphere. Although some had systems of exchange, this often wasn’t communicated, but we inferred that for the most part it was the exchange of doing or creating something, and getting something back. However, the individual stalls were generally very engaging and entertaining.

For example, Quilt for a Cause involved contributing to a quilt for the children’s hospital, and getting coffee or tea in exchange.  The zoetrope stall, where you spin the wheel and provide the light giving your own time and energy for the reward – an animation.  In the secrets stall, you gave your secrets in exchange for humour and relief. Overall the market was enjoyable and well put together as a collective.

Market Critic Review - Kristen Mabey

Market of Immaterial Labours – Reviewer/Critic

The Market of Immaterial Labours was something understood as an exchange of time and labour for a reward. The market was interesting and interactive and something that was enjoyed by many, when progressing through the market people would be required to interact for a reward or form of satisfaction. A quote that related to the market is “Immaterial Labour is the affective labour of human contact and interaction” (Hardt 95). This was understood more and more as the market progressed and as stallholders were requiring participants’ actions to do and create something.

A part of the market that was enjoyable was the quilting where you were making a quilt for a cause. The idea of your labour and creations helping a good cause and also personally getting rewarded with a drink was a really enjoyable stall (see images below).

The market offerings varied from physical creations, such as the quilting stall to actions/experiences in the ‘Constructing Your Image’ stall that required drawing with others to create a collaborated image (see left image below). A third interactive experience, which was particularly enjoyable, was lighting and spinning a wheel to experience an interesting projection (see right image below).

The overall atmosphere from this market was really relaxed and enjoyable, moving throughout the market contributing time and labour for rewards and interaction with different tasks. This market atmosphere was very interesting and enjoyable with the right amount of people to create a positive interactive enjoyable atmosphere.