Date: Wednesday 08 September 2010
Mission: Action Research
Special Agent: Michael Pinsky
Interrogation Agents: Jacobs, Thomas, Haye and Mills
For each of the mission days the Interrogation Agents were sent a top secret message via text and email the day before their mission, giving them instructions for the next day, on where to meet ‘the drop’.
Once they had made contact at 9.45am on the day of the mission they were passed a set of instructions on how to get to the Interrogation headquarters, included within these were a series of questions that they had to find the answers to on their journey, in order to gain entry on arrival at the headquarters.
The day began with an introduction by Anna Francis on teh town and the planned regneration of the Eastern Gateway to give the artists some context and a short presnetation by the Guest Agent Pinsky to give the Agents some inspiration and starting points for designing their Action Research missions.
Agent Pinksy gave a summary presentation as part of the final conference event which reflects his thoughts on artists bridging gaps and featuring some of the proejcts he had been part of which inspired the Action Research Agents, see his thoughts here:
VIDEO COMING SOON
The everyone followed Anna on a tour of West Bromwich, taking in various developments and paying particular attention to the “Target Zone”.
Once the tour was over it was time for lunch and for the Agents to design and prepare their mission on the streets of West Bromwich, and here is what they did….
VIDEO COMING SOON
Agent Jacobs:
Wanted to research how people used the High Street, he did this by observing people’s actions, writing them down and finally marking where they took place using post-it notes placed on the ground.
Agent Mills:
Decided to research the spaces and patterns within West Bromwich that people ordinarily walk past and to share them via the screen placed in the Interrogation headquarters window to celebrate these over looked spaces.
Agent Thomas:
Wanted to find out where the people of West Bromwich go, where they shop, where they meet friends, what spaces do they use and why int eh town. She did this by asking passers-by to direct ehr to their favourite spots and then finding someone at that spot to direct her to teh next place, mapping her journey as she went with parcel tags.
Agent Haye:
Undertook research into the townsfolk and their perspective of the place where they lived by asking them to be a statue and stand on his plinth for a minute whilst they talked to him about West Bromwich, using the town motto “Work Conquers All” or “Labor Omnia Vincit”
