Eye-Witness Reports

It all started when two people entered the classroom at 09:47 AM. Nothing big happened they just sat there; I think. After a while a third person entered and I could see him walking when he placed his jacket and backpack on the chairs next to the apple computer, who I am connected with for a very long time.

After some time I had to start doing my job and beam all the pictures the students brought with them for their assignment. I think their assignment was that they had to choose a position and then make different points about what they saw in Rotterdam. They kept talking and talking after almost every picture. For me that was way too long I would like to have some more action. Why didn’t they show a video or something? A cool thing was that when they were presenting, I finally could see how some of the people in the room looked like.
At one point they decided that they were done with showing pictures and they continued their interesting conversations with very different topics. But a returning topic was how they as different persons saw the world and how felt about it.

After everyone leaving for a small break, the silence in the room had returned.

Now they made two groups and they were talking about what they was done wrong in the academy but I couldn’t hear very much of the conversations because everyone was talking enthusiastically at the same time.

At one point there were only four people left in the room when someone suggested to make a small intervention in this room, my room! They started with bringing all the tables to one side of the room where I could see them. First they wanted to make a round with only chairs, with some chairs turned to the other side because of someone who would like to have their back turned to the other people in the class. Then they tried to make a circle with tables and nobody facing each other. They just sat there. After it being almost silent for a while there was a propose to tell a story.

So, all the four people in the room told their beautiful personal stories while everyone was very quietly listening.
I wish that would happen more often in this classroom. People just really listening to each other’s stories with so much respect and of course people more opening up to each other. Normally when people are here, only one person talks and the other people listen or are busy working on projects.
When the four people were done with the lesson, they left in a bit of a hurry and abandoned the two weird composition of all the chairs and tables.

Eye: The beamer in BL.05.2 at the WDKA

Milton Glaser - 1971

Eye: Brown paper on the tables

This morning I was carried to my work. To a space I had never been before. It was at the academy, but it was a journey with all the long hallways, stairs and weird white rooms with only doors.

After some time, my boss stops walking and puts her stuff down, including me. There I was laying on a cold table, waiting to be used.
But, I didn’t have to wait long before I was rolled out and a first piece was ripped of me with great power. Then a second and a third piece. Now, only 1,2 meters of me rolled up, is left.

I could feel how the pieces were placed on three individual round tables. A lot of colourful tape was used. At that moment I was very curious what was going to happen to me. Soon more people arrived in the room and a hot laptop was placed on me. It was not too hot, just the wright type of hot.
The people kept talking, they were no interesting conversations until my boss asked if they shall start with the question café.
The people divided themselves around the three tables and even before talking and writing questions for the question café there was already drawn on me.

First a dancing girl and then some other doodles. There was lots of talking so I couldn’t listen to all the conversations but one table stood out. There was a whole idea about the pigeon society with people dressing up as pigeons and living like the rules of the pigeon world.

................................. to be continued

For this project I worked together with Maarten. Our main focus was materialism and mostly consumerism.
We had some questions about why there is so much consumerism, what is holding people back from buying second hand? And why do you consume?
There where some ideas about people consuming clothes to fit in a certain group or go along with what is popular at the moment. Sometimes you also need a special outfit for different events like a job, job interview, ceremony, party etc.

While thinking about a job interview our first little intervention idea started in which we were going to ask students, to choose between two people who was the most successful. Some interesting results came out of it.

Puck Hofwegen, June 4th 2019

Working together with Maarten was fun, partly because we already know each other for almost 2 years. Sometimes I wished he was a bit more enthusiastic or willing to give more for the project. But you can’t force someone to like it or feel passionate about it.
The hard thing about this, was that I didn’t know how to not come across as someone who is constantly pushing you to do stuff, come in time etc. So, for instance, after asking Maarten to upload some pictures twice I just stopped. Also, I tried to be really relaxed about the time. It was hard for me, but I think I did a good job.

Nevertheless we had some cool interventions, a good time and a nice end project.
Our end project was not a performance (as a lot of the people in the group choose to do), but a more physical approach, to make a step towards fixing the problem we had critique on in school.
We wanted to stimulate students to use material and products that are left at school and not used by anyone anymore. So, we made stickers with “Free to use” on it. We added the quote “If you don’t need it, leave it. If you need it, take it” to the sticker to emphasize the fact that it is not trying to stimulate people using more and more, but just to say; it is there if you need it. Maybe then, it doesn’t have to be thrown away.
When we looked back, our end result was something really fitting to our major (Product design & Graphic). I mean, making something physical, thinking about unused materials and products and of course also making the design of the sticker.

In the end Maarten didn’t feel that this was his practice and he thinks about choosing “commercial”. But I really enjoyed myself this past week. There was lots of talking with giving your view on the topic in a save space and listening to a lot of interesting conversations. Plus, we did all kind of practical exercises. The combination of the two was really pleasant.
For theory I also felt really comfortable, writing small and fun pieces of text without too many rules and lots of strict research documents.

I think I will choose this practice because I feel I can really explore freely what I want to achieve with my spatial/product/graphic designs for the human beings of this world. While combining it with learning about different points of views of a society and sometimes maybe even intervene.

I hope the next two years will be kind of the same as I experienced it this time in the practice “Performing Radical”.