Appendix I – The Work
2) Policy Artifacts Location: Glasgow
Organisation: Glasgow Life (“GL”) Date: 1 April – 30 June 2013.
Concept: A self-initiated and self-directed research-based residency that explored the organization’s relationship to ‘cultural policy’ and understanding of the place and purpose of participatory projects within a formal, office environment. Note: Glasgow Life is the cultural arm of the Glasgow City Council, operating in trust, managing all Culture, Sports and Leisure activities within the city. Additionally, the organisation was in the throes of preparing for the 2014 Commonwealth Games and this emphasis on Sport and ‘commonwealth’ acted as a through-line to this residency.
Key Reflections: Policy does not equal Institutional Intent, but they are linked, and I am more interested in Institutional Intent. Institutions need to be comfortable with acts of self-reflection and self-analysis before expected that to occur with external
communities. Space limits thoughts.
GL1 The Daily Question:A series of questions aiming to explore core issues of cultural participation
These contentious questions were posted outside my ‘studio’
daily (which was actually an office) and aimed to expose the depths of opinion and perspectives, particularly in contrast to an assumed official corporate ‘party-line’ – whether it existed or not.
It operated as a mechanism to begin engagement, working as a microcosmic model of my practice where a conflict – or proposed conflict – is an invitation to enter into relationship and question the world around you. The questions also acted as a signifier that I was not a direct part of the company, as I could be openly critical, thus offering a space to confide in me. (Indeed, I became an ersatz counsellor to many staff who said they found having a neutral space to go comforting!) It was intended to initiate actual verbal discussions, but it elicited many non-verbal responses too, most tellingly a post-it note over the ‘How’ for the question “How Does Policy Work?” – thus questioning a central and
fundamental tenet of the company: to create and execute cultural policy.
Cardboard questions
GL2 Bulmalarky Bingo!: To explore the language of policy and highlight the disjunctions between use
and implementation.
This project looked to provide a humorous way to investigate the language used within corporate settings. Words from various policy documents were extracted and placed onto a bingo grid, then handed out to staff who were invited to mark off the words they come across in their day-to-day business – meetings, emails and briefings, etc. – that they felt were not given sufficient
definition or contextualisation. The aim was to understand how much of the language was just regurgitation of familiar, safe and expected language, and how much of it is clear in its intention. A bottle of wine was offered as an incentive to the first person to complete the exercise (but also to subvert ‘professional practices’). Ironically, the Policy team won it, collectively. The words obviously have specific meanings in their own right, but the point of the project was to interrogate when the words were used without clarity.
Bureaucratic Bingo
GL3 The Policy Elf:A performance that hoped to question from where ‘policy language’ emerges
A further development of BullMalarky Bingo, this project was
similarly concerned with the profusion of the ubiquitous words that were used in policy documents that had little specific meaning and seemed to be blanket statements for concepts that should, ideally, be further defined. I was interested in who took responsibility for utilising the word – where they came from – as many of the staff admitted using the words, despite the fact that there seemed to be a general consensus that they were
problematic. In a humours critique of this, I proposed that an elf must come in at night and sprinkle the words like fairy dust around the office and into documents. I thus created the Policy Elf and his Magic-Box-O-Policy-Words and in this work, I walked around the office, inviting staff to draw their ‘Policy Word of The Day’ at random. The words had been removed from actual policy documents of Glasgow Life and part of the performance was a discussion with each staff member on if, or how, the word chosen was applicable to their remit. It appeared, much like a horoscope, that the words were applicable to any person and their job title, despite being taken from policy documents not related to their area of expertise, thus highlighting not only problematic source of the use of these words, but also their definitions.
Interactive Policy Performance
GL4 Cultural Strategy: To subvert and question the language around the cultural policy of Glasgow Life
While the initial project’s proposal looked to “use the language of
engagement to explore ways to use the arts policies of the council, on the council” it was revealed that – at the time of the project – Glasgow Life did not have a cultural policy per se, and had been instead taking guidance from their ‘vision statement’
from their annual strategic plan. This statement stated that Glasgow Life wished “to inspire Glasgow’s citizens and visitors to lead richer and more active lives through culture and sport.” I therefore asked staff of Glasgow Life if I could pay them 10p if they would do a jumping-jack or push-up, thus making them
‘richer’ and ‘more active.’ See page 99 for a broader discussion of this work.
Dialogic Performance
GL5 Optimal Efficiency: To subvert the normal working processes via an interruption of rituals
As the company environment is structured rigidly around
break-times and lunch, this tried to provide a space to think differently about how Glasgow Life functioned. The ritual of break-time – as a sanctioned non-work moment of the workday – were usually associated with socialising around small treats, such as biscuits or chocolate. I noticed that there was a Pavlovian response to these breaks that manifested audibly: the background hum of the office grew louder with socialisation as the hush productivity dimmed. I attempted to induce such socialisations at different times of the day via offering ‘wee treats’ at times not usually associated with breaks. These small disruptions were highly successful and opened up a space to step away from the normal schedule and provided the opportunity to return to work from a different perspective, as well as subverting working processes.
Subversion, via biscuits.
GL6 Space Control: To explore how the space of the building constrained the body and limited thought.
Biologically, we are capable of more than just walking or sitting:
we are built to climb, to move, to swing, and to run. It is why we have long arms and long legs and is one of the essential gifts of our evolutionary identity. Often, however, the constructed urban space limits the range of possible movements and does not permit a tacit experience of the world because such things are not valued nor given space for expression. In Glasgow Life, via a series of assumed rules of decorum and civilised control, the corporate body only sits or walks gently. It is very restrained.
Additionally, an open-plan office often creates a ‘theatre of surveillance’ that further constrains physical action and, thus, via a soft power, the ‘body knowledge’ is repressed in favour of a more controlled existence that values an abstracted, intellectual presence. ‘Work’ – and therefore its expression – becomes limited to the intellectual and other realms of experience are undervalued. I therefore did a series of physical interventions – including running down the corridor, ‘planking’, sitting strangely, skipping, climbing on beams, etc. – were executed in order to provide the imaginary potential for a different way of being in the office and therefore a potential different way of thinking – ideologically and physically.
Spatial Disruption
GL7 Scream In A Lift: To explore public and private space within a bureaucratic environment.
Video: www.vimeo.com/66332823. Glasgow Life offices are
‘open plan’ and while this model has many advantages, one of the main critiques is that workers “feel watched by colleagues”
and was curious about the lack of private space. This, I felt, must be very frustrating. The only space wherein someone might felt like they weren't being watched was the elevator, and thus invited staff to scream in a lift together, both as a way to vent frustrations, but also to find allies who were aware of the lack of private space. This work began to challenge to the expected way of being, setting up a conflictual dynamic between myself and the institution, with the staff’s allegiances caught in the middle. See page 101 for a broader discussion of this work.
Screaming in an elevator
GL8 A Very Big Divider:The application of
‘Interpretive Policy Analysis” to expose the
implicit/explicit functions of control.
Shifting towards a more ‘institutional’ exploration, I began to look at the building and constructs of 220 High Street as Policy Artefacts – something that could include both ‘policy’ &
‘institution’. See page 100 for a broader discussion of this work.
A statement of the obvious
GL9 A Tale of Two Fridges: An intervention that subverted a perceived disparity between the
Directorate and the staff
This project was to highlight and flesh out the (perceived) conflict between the staff and the Directorate that I had uncovered in the previous project (A Very Big Divider). Milk for tea and coffee is a highly contentious issue within office politics, and the provision of milk elicits a wide variety of responses that run the political gamut, ranging from the communist (“Milk should be communal property”), the socialist (“Milk should be provided by the
state/authority”), to the capitalist (“Get your own goddamn milk”) and the anarchistic (“I don’t recognise your milk hierarchy and will take whatever I want”). So too, was the control, use of, and space-provision within the communal fridges, of which there were 4 in Glasgow Life. The majority of the staff, however, only used the three fridges, avoiding the 4th fridge that was based within the Directorate’s section. Many staff also believed that the Directorate’s milk was purchased by the company, whereas other departments/individuals had to buy their own and this led to fridges being overstocked with individual cartons, whereas the Directorate’s fridge was relatively empty. In actual fact, the Directorate pooled resources and worked together to by a singular, shared units of milk. In order to subvert the perceived milk-economy and battle for fridge space, over the course of the residency, I daily stole the milk from the Directorate, and relocated it in the other fridges with a note explaining where it came from, thus suggesting a complicity in the theft by anyone who used the stolen milk. The work’s conflictual tension heightened as the residency went on, with people raising the concern about free milk directly within meetings
Milk As Materials
GL10 DeBureaucratise Hegemonic Authority: To neuter spaces of power via familiarity
I was curious to explore how much the Directorate’s (assumed)
position as ‘repressive authority’ was due to an imagined powerful space that was unseen by many of the staff, hidden behind the ‘very big divider.’ Much like the Wizard of Oz was revealed to be a small, old man at the simple slide of a curtain, I wondered could this imagined power dynamic be undone by a project that demystified the Directorate’s space. To do this, I moved every single chair into the Directorate section one morning and staff had to therefore enter into the Directorate’s space to find their particular chairs. It provided an opportunity to see, experience and demystify the world behind the divider.
Some of the Directorate were working in the space while this happened, further demystifying their position of power.
Chair Theft As Art
GL11 Throw A Ball At A Colleague: To reveal divisions between departments
As with Scream In a Lift, this project was to explore how staff “felt
like they were being watched” and explore the corporate open plan office. In this project I offered the invitation to throw a soft ball at a colleague, disrupting them in a humorous way, but also revealing the lines of interaction and division. The arc of the ball showed those that the thrower might be comfortable throwing a ball at, but also, by extension, whom they did not feel comfortable attacking, thus revealing power dynamics at play and gaps between connections.
Mapping Via Throwing Balls
GL12 Banners To Stand Under Together: To explore identity within a corporate setting, as well as induce
interdepartmental conflict
Throw A Ball At A Friend was a project that hinted at
interpersonal conflict, but it also revealed stark divisions between departments, despite the ‘open plan’ model. I therefore sought out a way to elicit more interactions between departments, as well as create individualised identities within the faceless bureaucracy. Using visual clues to identity, I designed a banner for each department developed in consultation mutually deciding on images. I refined the images and banners and returned for input from departments until they were happy with it as a representative for them to stand under. The designs were to reflect how the department saw itself, but also how it felt it was perceived. In relation to the ‘Office Olympics: The Wealthy Common’ project, these flags operated under the notion that each team could compete against each other under the banner, thus contained ‘threatening’ or ‘challenging’ images. The
projected did inspire other teams to seek out how other’s defined themselves, and induced wider inter-departmental discussion.
Faction Identifiers
GL13 Office Olympics - The Wealthy Common:
Interdepartmental conflict via a series of sports
games to reveal structural & institutional conflicts Glasgow Life, as the institution that leads upon the 2014
Commonwealth (a huge financial and resource investment), are responsible for the cultural legacy of the Games, as well as their associated cultural events. As such, the largest portion of the residency were dedicated to a project that used the
Commonwealth Games as a methodology of engagement and critique, referencing how physicality can act to critique the corporate environment, but also be used to form
interdepartmental conflict that revealed structural and institutional power-dynamics. It also acted to further entrench relationships and invite unforeseen subversions to emerge. The games’ title refers back to the ‘Commonwealth’ but also hoped to question – and refer back to – the rhetoric of the mission statement that
‘sport’ makes one ‘richer’. Each game was similarly derived from policy: for example, ‘Legacy Building’ was a game where teams were challenged to build the tallest structure out of blocks that had the word ‘legacy’ on the side, thus being humorously subversive about building “a lasting legacy” (Glasgow’s Cultural Strategy – Glasgow: The Place, The People, The Potential.
March, 2006) and other such remits of Glasgow Life.
Sport as methodology
GL14 Boring: To challenge to the notion of corporation’s perceived identity and purpose
A small intervention in which I walked around the office with a
sign that simply read: ‘Boring.’ The idea was not to be specific about what was boring – it could be read as a comment on the staff, the work, the environment, myself, or event the building design – but allow multiple readings. Indeed, I had many questions asking me “what was boring?” The work hoped to problematise the expectations of formal and/or formulaic institutions and their relationship with ‘entertainment’. This was one of the many moments I received unsolicited participation, when a department posted an ‘inappropriate’ graphic (George Bush Jr making a rude gesture) on my studio door with the phrase “We’re not boring!“ written on it. These unsolicited
exchanges proved to me that the project was not only ‘working’ in encouraging conflict, but that engagement was taking place at a variety of levels, including challenging and countering my own provocations. This suggested a welcome criticality to my project.
Sadly, in this case, once I had seen the response, it was quickly taken down for fear of “getting into trouble.”
Sign Performance
GL15 Fight Club: Conflict as critique of the corporate space and to promote inter-relational opportunities
Video: www.vimeo.com/69552954. The corporate realm restricts
physical expression, and this event aimed to provide a space to be profoundly physical. This work offered a context via to shed frustrations and have a different (corporeal) response and interaction with colleagues, thereby providing alternative structures to critique the dominant hegemony. The conflict elicited a variety of responses, and of the 15 staff that
participated, the interaction ranged from a full-throttle wrestle that included someone picking me up and spinning me around over his head, to someone who did not even know how to make a fist and was interested in learning how to punch someone. See page 103 for a broader discussion of this work.
After work basement fighting.
GL16 Security Risk: To question the sanctity of the corporate space
220 High Street is guarded 24 hours a day by a security team as
well as CCTV cameras. Staff can only gain access by way of digitised swipe cards and everyone else must be accompanied.
As a public institution that worked for all the ‘citizens and visitors of Glasgow,’ there were questions about who had access to that space, and why they had that control. The first iteration of the work was a humorous sign taped onto my shirt that declared me a security risk. The second project was initiated near the close of my project, when I discovered someone had left their visitors tag that allowed non-staff to enter into the building. I took the badge and placed it on High Street where a member of the public–a
‘citizen or visitor of Glasgow’ – could find it, and thus gain access to the building. The project aimed to reveal the implicit and explicit definitions of ‘public’ within (and without) a ‘public’
institution, and who might be allowed to challenge such institutions.
Sign of a performance
Feedback – Digital (The following was gathered via SurveyMonkey.com as well as hard copies. I have highlighted the pertinent responses below. All grammar original.) 1
Q1: What have you felt were the merits of having an “Artist In Residence”?
It was a a talking point and took people out of their comfort zone. It cut through the negativity and created a lighter environment in the office.
Q2: What have you felt were the disadvantages of having an “Artist In Residence”?
I wouldn't say there were disadvantages. People could choose to be involved or not.
Q3: How did Anthony’s project impact on your work or working environment? Please explain.
I felt it lifted the mood in the office and gave people a release during their normal working day.
Q4: How did the project change your interactions with other employees of Glasgow Life, if at all?
It didn't personally change my interactions with other employees.
Q5: How do you think the project affected Glasgow Life as an institution – if at all?
I think that will be more apparent in the long run but at the moment I can't see a change in the organisation culture.
Q6: Do you have any further comments you would like to add?
Thanks Anthony!
2
Q1: What have you felt were the merits of having an “Artist In Residence”?
You added a bit of fun and some humour which we don't often have. It was good to have a
You added a bit of fun and some humour which we don't often have. It was good to have a