xt1me

The midsummer festival actually ends tomorrow but my volunteer duties are over now.

I’ve already talked about ‘Starlight’ and the gardening I had to do for ‘Hungry Tea’ but I should probable talk about the other shows.

‘Inductive Probability’ was just a talk by an artist that was expositioning at the Triskel. My job there was just to hand the microphone to the people in the audience that wanted to ask questions. Still, it was interesting to hear about some of the artist’s work and what their thoughts were when making it.

Some of the work there was photos taken at night using an explosion of magnesium as a light source.

Another thing talked about was a commission for a school. He made a number of benches out of different materials to show how differently the react to there environment. For example the copper bench would be popular in winter because it would heat up the fastest but would be unbearable in summer.

There were a lot more there and it was interesting to hear how he tried to incorporate basic scientific principles into all his work.

‘The Volume of Sound’ took place in the UCC library. My job was to bring the people up to the room it was taking place, give them the equipment they needed and sink up their ipods. Since it was a piece that required people to experience it two at a time one of us would sometimes have to do it with someone. I had to do it twice.

It was kind of an exercise in the written word. You’d sit next to the other person at a desk with a number of books in front of you. You put on a pair of headphones and follow the instructions. It started with a whispered narration on the sounds you hear around you and then instructs you to open one of the books and read along. It talks about the words your reading, at one point stopping and allowing the sentence your reading to continue picking up the narration again later. It tells you to pick up the other books at the table a various points, to take the book from the person next to you, to follow along with your finger, to let them do the same.

It was interesting. Defiantly imaginative.

It was an hour long for each “performance” and we had no major technical issues. Though at one point we couldn’t figure out how to change a track because none of us actually knew how to use an ipod. We figured it out in the end.

‘Hotel’ had a similar set up. There were five rooms in a hotel and people would go up one at a time at about 10 to 15 minutes apart. You got the five keys to the rooms, labelled in order, and you’d spend time in each room. The sound of a phone ringing signalled the cue to leave the room and it was staggered so you weren’t likely to meet any of the other people when you were switching rooms.

Each room had information about a different worker at the hotel. They were real people that all actually still worked in the hotel and if you paid attention you would probably see one around. Each room was set up in a different way, one had photos on the wall, one had a letter to read, one had a speaker talking and another a video. There was a pile of towels reaching up to the ceiling on one room and another had been transformed into a small forest with dirt on the ground an real trees inside. There was even fish in the bathtub.

It was definitely an interesting way to highlight the jobs cleaning staff did in a hotel.

After the last room one of the staff mentioned in one of the rooms would bring you on a small tour of the hotel before bringing you back down to the entrance.

Our job was simple. Either wait out in the corridor in case of problems, like a key card not working, or bring up the people from the entrance to the first room. Not a very interesting job. I glad I brought my book.

Like the library one it was hard to tell it was busy because it was happening one at a time but it was actually mostly full. It ticked over very smoothly though. The timing had to be right or people would bash into each other. Luckily we had no difficulties.

I’m glad I did this. There’s no way I would ever bother to do any of this on my own.