A couple of weeks ago I was walking through Lincoln high street when I came across a sofa with a white square in front of it stating ‘Joe’s space’ and sat down on it were a couple of girls. I did what a lot of other people in the street did and looked at it as I walked past but didnt interact with it any further.
This was part of Joe’s photography project which was ‘a social experiment to explore the boundaries of the public spaces on the High Street, but also an investigation of public interactions with strangers.’ Along with this he states in the about section of YouTube with the video, ‘ most occupy movements have been engaging significant political value, mine was to instigate conversation and basic human interaction as so many of us just walk idly by one another.’
This made me think of our group piece which is based in the Collection Gallery cafe and an experiment which our group tried the other day. A few members of our group sat on their own around the cafe and started talking to themselves, no one caught anyones attention except from Gabriel. Gabriel sat having argument with an imaginary person in the seat opposite and caught the eye of a customer of the cafe who looked up, saw what was happening and quickly looked away again. This shows that we avoid any interaction or involvement with things which are not considered normal or which may include being a part of it. Like the passers by in the street, compared to the amount of people in the high street, only a small number of people actually stopped and got involved with the project.
From the observations my other group members and I have found from the customers in the cafe, a lot of people tend to sit on their own and appear to be in their own world, totally oblivious to everyone else. Which makes me think, are they so involved in their own bubble they don’t really notice anyone or do they pretend to be to ignore things which happen around them? For example, yesterday afternoon an elderly man caused some commotion in the cafe with the staff but the only people who seemed to notice were our group and a couple who were sat behind us. I looked around and everyone else just carried on as normal with their own conversations or still reading as if nothing had happened.
There are so many examples in today’s society where people avoid situations because they feel awkward or not safe. An extreme example of this is demonstrated in the video below:
Is this now the extreme people will go to to not get involved? Does this make anyone else think we live in a society where people are more enclosed and seem cut off from everyone else?
Burt, Joe (2013) Occupying Lincoln high St. [online video] available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgSP7Rb3cb4&feature=player_embedded [accessed 5th March 2013]
PayNoMind416 (2010) The Bystander Effect: No One Cares. [online video] available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGaJrgi_SpE&feature=player_embedded [accessed 5th March 2013]