Red tape views

My red tape (well legal ribbon) has now arrived and with it some new thoughts on the series of Action Point signposts that I've been discussing with many of the photographers who sent in views from their windows. Thanks to Jonathan's suggestion of metal signs (which has moved me away from appropriating the laminated planning sign format) and Daryl's recommendation of Dibond I have drafted some ideas for a series of signs that could be bounded in the pink colour of legal tape, with abstract lines pointing to the particular point in the view where they are stationed (Fellow Nine-trader, Clare has also suggested this looks like an envelope and that a stationery theme could come out of it). The patterns and instructions in the Action Point signs could be mirrored with a simple vinyl layout on the window that the view has come from.

Overlooked Space # 9

Blinded by spreadsheets

A slight diversion from games & signs but I couldn't helping thinking that Lynne's spreadsheet looked like it could move and flow.

Overlooked Space # 8

Card Games and Board Games # 1

I've been exploring how the way people use their computers and how administrative tools can become games. It's all about work and play! Look out for some more developed versions of these at next Thursday's Board Meeting!

Overlooked Space # 7

Board Meeting - initial Agenda

On Thursday 1 July from 12.30 pm to 1.30 pm I'm hosting a Board Meeting in this impressive and rather daunting room. If you'd like to attend them email me at P.Koszerek@dundee.ac.uk for more info.


It's a game, an artwork, a complimentary lunch and a chance for everyone to use their votes (and if they're lucky a Casting Vote) to decide on the signs for the 'View from your window' overlooked spots.


I've been visiting offices over the last two weeks and asking people about the oddest or funniest meetings they've attended. As well as agenda suggestions such as the surrealist term 'lobster', I've been set the challenge of thinking up an event that will live up to the 'Pirates and Savages' Away Day that the admin department at DOJ went on last September. They climbed over fences, walked through fields, wore grass skirts and wrote a song. What more can you want from an Away Day?

For the Board Meeting I'm hoping to conjure up the start of some kind of adventure.



What is it with girls and pink ribbon? Ever since I clapped eyes on the legal tape used by the legal department at the Trade Union I temped at last year I've wanted some of my own. Finally I've ordered some and it should be arriving today or Monday. I was pleased to observe that it matches the Board Room chairs very nicely.

Overlooked Space # 6

At any time

Overlooked Space # 5

Views from David's desk

Thanks to David Murie who has sent me a series of great photographs of the views from his office that he has taken over a period of time. Here are a small selection with his descriptions.

View from my office window 18 Jun 2009

D. C. Thomson's building and city centre, seen from my office window, 2 Jul 2009.

Cross Lane seen from my office window 2 Jul 2009

Cranes appear in Dundee city centre. 9 Jul 2009.

This half of the view from my office window should change dramatically in the year ahead, as this old building is to be demolished at last. Hazel and I can both remember the stairwell and lectures there in the days when it was part of the Dundee Teacher Training College, but hopefully we're not quite ready for demolition yet! 8 Oct 2009.

Overlooked Space # 4

The Association of Secretaries

I attended the Tayside Association of Secretaries' meeting in March and offered to minute their meeting as an artwork. Since then I've met with Barbara who has been giving me tips on shorthand as well as much needed photocopies and an alphabet guide that she wrote up. I was really excited to see a copy of Pitman's Shorthand Reporter which Barbara has really kindly lent to me so that I can refine my own shorthand skills. I include a draft of the minutes from the meeting which I began translating into shorthand from my own longhand and Barbara's comments on it. It's yet to be seen how accurate my final version will be!





Thank you to Barbara and the Tayside Association of Secretaries for your generosity.

Overlooked Space # 3

Minute-taking at the Dickens Museum

Two views of my work 'The Secretary Is Fired' in an exhibition in the Dickens Museum that took place in April and at Vegas Gallery in February. Thanks to Duane Moyle for the photos. In my investigations into shorthand I've also had the chance to have a look at the Museum's copy of Gurney's system of Shorthand which Dickens used. I include below some other samples of shorthand found in the Museum which I'd like to think were by Dickens.

Overlooked Space # 2

A Draft/Taster

Overlooked Space # 1

Two recent collaborations

Here are a couple of recent artworks that I have created in London and Salford that continue to follow my interest in exploring the potential of everyday activities as performances and our everyday environment as a stage.

In May I collaborated with Anna Pharoah to create 'Out of Office' a performance day of absurd, humorous and playful activities for artists who work in offices. Playing around with jargon terminology to create 'blue sky treasure hunts' and 'critical path games' we invited artists to build their own desks from our specially designed flat pack installations and thereby form into temporary departments. Resources were swapped between departments using our negotiation telephones and inter-departmental pully system. This ties in with my curiosity about how the Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee carried out their outdoor meetings. In the weeks leading up to the event I was quaking with fear that there would be a downpour (though this might have added to the irony of the artwork - but perhaps not the enjoyment of participants!), fortunately it was a beautiful sunny day.

I


In April I was a guest at the amazing Islington Mill in Salford where I collaborated with Maurice Carlin on Box Office, a temporary booth sited in Salford Central Station from which we issued free tickets for ephemeral events in disused and overlooked spaces around the area. Events included Lowri Evan's So long series of performances that used the platform as a stage and the trains as an entry and exit device, Andrew Beswick's Rebound Diary Project in which he commemorated events that had been printed in his pocket book diary through a range of performative acts, Sarah Sanders created a series of games for children in the playground of the Islington Estate and staged a sing along there with local musicians, Amy Pennington touted tickets for Manchester's 'Ghost Ramp' and Maria Dada inaugurated Paper Records, a fictitious record label that signs up pipe-dream bands with a brainstorming meeting in one of the open office spaces in Manchester Civic Justice Centre. The project also included a series of gigs down the phone line of a telephone booth programmed by Maurice Carlin and a tour to the amazing derelict Pomona Docks where participants were given a proposed journey route to follow that positioned the participant in a historical period related to the site.