Get a Life

By Stephanie Grace

The fifth team of collaborators in the great “This Is Why We Meet” experiment are a group of “attention-grabbing” London College of Communications students who are wondering: just how far are people willing to go?

(Click any image to enlarge it)

After a few days of discussion and deliberation between the four LCC students, jotta caught up with them just as they are poised to put their plans into action.

The dream team from LCC includes Yana Naidenov, a second year graphic design student specalising in interaction and the moving image, her previous work has been centered around human interaction and collective performance. Eleanora D’Acci, also on graphic design, Eleanora has chosen the typography pathway, and is interested in ideas, researching and testing. Recent graduate of the graphic design course, Daniel Camacho's final piece for university explored ideas surrounding barriers, borders and the passing of time. While the fourth person in the puzzle, Catarina Chaby is currently studying sound art and design and iikes to experiment with new technology. Through her practice Catarina creates virtual spaces through sound as well as recording live music and bands.

jotta: What have you been up to over the last couple of days?
Yana: “Monday was a workshop at Liverpool Street station, in teams we stood at a distance from each other and attempted to communicate an idea to the other team using only paper, pens and string. It was really hard, because the ideas were so abstract (truth and lies) but we got there in the end.”
Daniel: “It was a good introduction into the way we might work together.”

jotta: What did you think of the previous groups work so far?
Daniel: “I think that because we got to see people’s response, we wanted to go a step ahead, a step further.”
Yana: “Even though the other teams windows were bright and colourful, people weren’t necessarily stopping.”
Eleanora: “We wanted people to stop, to grab their attention.”

jotta: How are you going to do that?
Katrina: “by using the space in between the two windows”
How did you come up with your idea?
Yana: “we wanted to use the idea of the window display to invite you in, that’s why were going to use mannequins”
Eleanora: “we wanted to use the language of the place, we didn’t want the concept to be too abstract or that it could have been made anywhere, brick lane is a place you go to shop. Its about space becoming a place.”

jotta: What ideas do you hope to explore through this project?
Daniel: This project is not only about collaboration or interaction. 'Get a life' aims to take the project one step further and explore human dialogues and social participation.

jotta: What can the audience expect on Monday when your installation goes live?
Daniel: “We want to give people a new experience”
Yana: “We're looking forward to have some fun with it and see the public reaction.”

So if you're in the Shoreditch area next week and bump into some interactive mannequins on the street, don’t say jotta didn’t warn you!

Display: Monday 10th- Sunday 17th August
Private view: Monday 10th August, 6-9pm
WK LONDON
16 HANBURY ST
LONDON
E1 6QR