WRITTEN RESPONSE
For this project, I chose BINGFIELD PARK, a venue near my home, as the starting point for my observations. To make my observation more detailed and precise, I tried to narrow down the scope of my observation and slowly moved my focus to the swing set facilities in the corner of the park. This swing set area comprised two sets of swings, a more significant single swing made of twine and steel, and two single swings made of plastic and chain. During the investigation process, I tried to use different research methods to record the scenes I saw and some interesting findings, and the various techniques also brought me different surprises. Through the final integration, I mainly focused on how people of different ages interact with the swings, their body posture, hand and foot positions, and their interaction with the swings.
I began the project by reading three chapters of Georges Perec’s Species of Spaces and Other Places. Through careful reading and analysis, Georges Perec’s meticulous documentation and deciphering of the urban environment in these chapters gave me a more precise starting point and inspired my research process. This meticulous documentation of everyday life gave me a more accurate direction throughout my research. At the beginning of the week, I tried to be like Georges Perec in that I recorded everything I saw on the site and even around it, regardless of whether or not it was meaningful or could be my final output. It was a very informative process for me, and the organizing phase revealed a lot of potential directions for further observation and research. In the final study, I filtered through the different directions of observation. I focused on the interaction between people and the site or facility, observing the nuances of how the “visitors” used the swings (public space) and the meaning of their interactions in these environments.
Having accumulated a lot of research during the first and second weeks, I wanted to establish more of a research theme to continue observing. I was inspired by Agnès Varda’s documentary The Gleaners and I, in which she talks about the story behind the act of “picking up” through a voice-over and combines it with the question of why different groups of people have different purposes for “picking up.” And the purpose of picking up is different for different groups of people. This gave me the idea that I could also emphasize the interaction between people and places. Therefore, I started to think about how different people utilize the space and the logic of their behaviors in the same place. I tried to find the subtle differences in the seemingly identical behavior of each person using the swing set. I discovered that children and adults have different behavioral goals when faced with a site with distinct play purposes and usage methods. Children are more interested in establishing social connections with friends and family and are more interested in getting attention and getting closer.
Conversely, adults are looking for a temporary escape from reality through the proposed rides, which can also serve adult social purposes. Because of the variety of uses, there are different postures and positions of the hands and feet when using the swings. Agnès Varda has given me a high prompt for social observation in advancing the theme, allowing me to stop paying attention to the objects and to integrate the communication between people and the environment.
Reference List
Agnès, V. (2000) The Gleaners and I [Film]. France: Ciné-Tamaris
Perec, G. (1997) ‘The Street’, ‘The Neighbourhood’ and ‘The Town’, in Perec, G. (eds.) Species of spaces and other pieces, London: Penguin Books Ltd, pp. 47-67.
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