Word In Transit
Interview with Julia Collington after her performance for Word in Transit 4#117TH Badgerscouts (Art Licks Weekend 2018)
We talk to Julia Collington after her performance for Word in Transit 4, 117th Badgerscouts, for Artlicks Weekend 2018 Peripheries.
For those who don’t know, could you tell us about what your performance was about and where it came from?
For exactly three minutes, in between Clapton and Walthamstow, I led a team building sing-a-long.
The lyrics of the song were in inspired from and sometimes quite literally taken directly from team-building memes and inspirational quotes found online, ones that I’m sure you’re all probably very aware of. I realised how deeply I disagreed with many of these inspirational memes, that had become pixelated and ‘deep-fried’ through years of screenshots and copy and paste. Something that appears so positive and healthy on the surface that relatives and old friends from school post, is ultimately just propaganda for feeding unrealistic and unhealthy expectations left by corporations trying to make the biggest profit possible and therefore creating unrealistic and unhealthy ideas inside the mind of the person reading reposting or reading it. Surely there is another reason to get up every morning and do something that we feel passionate about and love that isn’t directly related to this idea of profitable ‘success’.
Of course corporate inspirational quotes are not a new thing, posters like the one below have been around since the 80’s and 90’s. The difference is that these memes that have spread through the internet allows for the corporate to enter the home and personal space and I wonder the effect this has on our ideas of happiness and love.
I digitally fried my guitar and amp to reflect on these inspirational memes role in the creative song writing process.
For Those who didn’t seen it, could you explain more about where Leroy Anderson came from and Does embodying a character help to engage your idea in a more fruitful way?
‘You work in the engineering department of Green Hose Solution LTD, the biggest hose producer and disrupter in the UK and Ireland, most well-known for the invention of the stretch hose. A new managing director, Vanessa James, was appointed last year. Vanessa’s icon in life is Henry Ford. Henry Ford believed that ‘if everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.’ Therefore, in April of this year, in an attempt to improve business and ultimately reach markets in the US, Vanessa asked every employee to fill out a staff satisfaction survey. All departments, including IT, finance and even the sales team came out with over 80% saying that they are happy and content in their role. All the departments apart from yours, where this came out as only 20% being happy and content in their role. At the most recent All Staff meeting, it was announced that the HR department have hired a specialist, Leroy Anderson, to come in every Thursday afternoon in an attempt to improve motivation, teamwork and build trust within your department and below is the poster you were handed. It is also mentioned that failure to join with the workshop could lead to disciplinary action.’
I always find that creating a narrative helps me to access my thoughts, ideas and opinions and people and their personalities are always at the core of these, inspired by the people I work with and meet and also characters from television and film. I actually chose the name Leroy after my first driving instructor who used to shout and clap at me until I cried, because I wasn’t learning how to drive quickly enough for him.
Can you tell us a bit more about your interest in team building exercises and staff satisfaction surveys, do you find them ridiculous or useful? Or both?
I think staff satisfaction surveys could be a good thing if they have a genuine intention. Perhaps in many cases they’re often used for the management to pretend to care about their employees, without actually finding a solution for any issues raised, or just think if a lousy solution like in Green Hose Solution LTD. Similarly, the National Student Survey pretends to provide feedback on universities and the quality of courses offered, but really just allows misinterpreted student feedback to be used as a sly way of raising tuition fees and dramatically reshape university landscape across England, with unknown economic and social impacts (esp ART SCHOOLS). So, in this case the satisfaction survey is definitely a bad thing! (So we should boycott…)
Did realising this work in the context of word in transit help or make you think about these ideas for further exploration or consideration?
The idea of badger scouts initially inspired me to think about how I could approach team-building and what experiences of team-building within the work place I have had that could influence this. Word in Transit challenged me into sharing a narrative with an audience with a time limit of 3 minutes, so I had to think about timeless elements like costume and props and what clues these would tell the audience about the narrative. In the future I want to continue to digitally deep fry and print object of meaning to trick the audience.
And finally, what’s your favourite tube line?
The obvious answer here is the Victoria line, it’s fast, rarely down, so instead I’m going to go with circle and district line (is that two tube lines or one?) I like that sometimes you’re in a tunnel and then you come out of the tunnel and you can appreciate day light in way you wouldn’t normally do. I like that you’re never too far from the barriers, so you don’t have lots of escalators, steps and lifts to go up. I LOVE sitting at the front on the DLR, but I only have to use it rarely, whereas I’ve got friends who use it every day for commuting to and from work and they despise it! Solidarity with tube strikers though.
Head here to see more of Julia’s Work -
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