Outcome
I hid a Bluetooth speaker in the classroom’s ceiling and played a 30-minute audio file intended to disturb the class as if the sounds were coming from outside the window/room. The audio which starts just before the class group assembles in the room has a continuous discreet construction site atmosphere to make the participants accustomed to external noise coming from that direction. Only after 10 minutes, I start introducing other ‘plausible’ but annoying/distracting sounds like drilling machines, footsteps, bulldozers etc. Carefully timed long pauses let the participants return to their conversations during the first 30 minutes. Towards the end a multitude of sounds overlap and the fact that it is a sound installation becomes obvious, an opera version of Sex Pistols ‘Anarchy in the UK’ starts playing, concert crowds start cheering and it all ends with Johnny Rotten answering journalists’ questions.
Brief
Punk Public Space
Interrogate ‘spatial justice’ and the difference between social and antisocial behaviour. Think
through ‘punk’ as a mode, tool or mechanism to challenge, rethink, rebuild, experiment.
Questions to consider
Who gets to decide what is social and what is antisocial behaviour?
When is chaos productive and enjoyable? When is chaos harmful? Whose chaos?
Who creates the rules for engagement in public spaces? Who polices public space? How can
public space be more equitable?
What approaches to punk are there? Can punk be challenged?
Avoid
Stereotype, known or accepted aesthetics attached to these words, cliche.
Try to
Include how we come to your response – in the response itself, how can you invite people
into what you have learnt without spelling it out. Include the group in your discovery.
Do not use
Technology – think of an embodied response, this doesn’t have to be performative.