Pippa Koszerek

July Board Meeting

2010-07-08T11:47:00.006+01:00

Thanks to Lewis Houghton for his photographs of the July 1st Board Meeting which was attended by Pippa Koszerek (Chair), Ewan Manson, Rachel Walker, George Massie, Caroline Peters, David Murie, Jonathan Weyers, Barbara Davie, Gerry O'Brien and Anne-Marie Bottoms (Minute-Keeper).

The board members broke off into sub-committees of two with their own set of playing cards to undertake a series of activities. The playing cards represented each item on the agenda and the design was taken from a print screen image of an e-mail based calendar. The board game played was based on a holiday leave spreadsheet.

I'm hoping that this meeting can be considered a contender in the category of 'most enjoyable board meetings ever'. I'd also like to note that although the board were working in teams of two, there was a great deal of inter-committee collaboration, especially when one team found the lunch hamper and had to prepare refreshments!

Bureaucratic Origami by Rachel Walker

2010-07-02T11:42:00.004+01:00

Rachel Walker, a Dundee-based artist and curator at Generator Projects has made a series of works in response to the workplace. In Bureaucratic Origami she create sculptural works with her pay slips.

Thank you!

2010-07-02T11:08:00.003+01:00

Thank you to everyone who attended yesterday's Board Meeting. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Annie Bottoms did a brilliant job as the minute-keeper with her Auctioneer performance! Thank you to Lewis Houghton who came and photographed the event. I'll upload some photos from the event soon but in the meantime here's one that George sent me (taken by Lewis I assume)!

Office Training Quiz # 1 - What's your pig personality?

2010-07-02T10:58:00.002+01:00

After meeting Ewan at the minute-taking session in March we realised that we share an interest in (or an obligation to attend?) corporate training sessions. Here is a test from one of the sessions that Ewan recently undertook and in the blog below you can see all the results I've gathered during my office visits. Nine trades artists and curators have also given it a shot!

Office Training Quiz # 1 - Results!

2010-07-02T10:48:00.004+01:00

Red tape views

2010-06-29T10:26:00.003+01:00

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

2010-06-29T10:10:00.001+01:00

Blinded by spreadsheets

2010-06-29T09:52:00.002+01:00

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

2010-06-29T09:50:00.000+01:00

Card Games and Board Games # 1

2010-06-25T10:10:00.003+01:00

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

2010-06-25T10:07:00.001+01:00

Board Meeting - initial Agenda

2010-06-25T09:46:00.004+01:00

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

2010-06-19T23:02:00.001+01:00

At any time

2010-06-19T23:00:00.002+01:00

Overlooked Space # 5

2010-06-17T09:54:00.000+01:00

Views from David's desk

2010-06-15T14:11:00.006+01:00

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

2010-06-14T19:12:00.001+01:00

The Association of Secretaries

2010-06-14T18:57:00.005+01:00

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

2010-06-10T23:59:00.000+01:00

Minute-taking at the Dickens Museum

2010-06-10T23:29:00.002+01:00

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

2010-06-09T19:31:00.002+01:00

A Draft/Taster

2010-06-08T23:24:00.001+01:00

Overlooked Space # 1

2010-06-08T23:20:00.002+01:00

Two recent collaborations

2010-06-07T09:54:00.006+01:00

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.

Office Patterns and Colour Coding (Part 2)

2010-06-07T00:50:00.000+01:00

Office Camouflages - Part 2 (Caroline's View)

2010-06-07T00:48:00.000+01:00

Office Patterns and Colour Coding

2010-06-07T00:44:00.001+01:00

Office Camouflages - Part 1 (Concealed Sketches)

2010-06-07T00:02:00.010+01:00

The politics of meetings

2010-06-05T01:06:00.000+01:00

I sat in on a really enjoyable and fascinating course on minute-taking at the University of Dundee which was lead by Clare Marchbank. Did you know that minute-taking came about in the 17th century through two distinct pathways? - the parliamentary system and company law practices. In the former the Chair (the Speaker) and the secretary are both independent and expected to be impartial, in the latter the Chair is often the one with the most shares and the Secretary (with a capital S) is his right hand man. In one the Chair is active and steers the direction of the meeting and in the other the Chair is passive and oversees the discussions.
Clare stressed the political aspect of minute-taking, of recording what was said and agreed. - With the Data Protection act, this equally means what has not been added to minutes, with the secretary's scribbled notes often being destroyed once the written up minutes have been approved. I'm looking forward to investigating the politics of meetings (and not just office politics) further.

A visit to the Nine Trades archives allowed me to read through some very detailed minutes, sederunts and lockit books from the past. When the Nine Trades initially began they held their meetings in the Howff, a graveyard in Dundee where past masters of each Trade were buried. Each Trade would hold their meetings at a specific gravestone. The reasoning for this was that outdoors they had most privacy and could not be overheard - something which seems counter to my logic as I can't help visualising people hidden behind tombstones snooping in. If there were meetings going on in my local graveyard I'd certainly be curious though perhaps I would be wary of venturing out there!

Views of their desks

2010-06-04T00:57:00.000+01:00

I've been really fortunate to meet with many people during my visits up to Dundee who have been generous with their time and inviting me into their workplaces.

Office Views in Dundee

2010-02-23T22:19:00.004Z

I've received several more fantastic and fascinating views from office desks. Thank you to Jacqueline Ritchie, Morag Pollard, Charles DeFranco, Neil Gellatly, Sue DeFranco, Mark Walker, Anne Cheeney and Ged Gourley.

Coded messages

2010-02-16T11:12:00.002Z

I've been really inspired by the shorthand notes that Caroline showed me when I visited her office a couple of weeks ago. Since then I've been looking into shorthand courses. I love the potential that short hand has to create works that are both visual images and coded messages. I am also interested in the act of typing and perhaps linking up the codes that can be created through the recorded sounds with coded messages in shorthand and morse code from office windows. If anyone in Dundee wants to join me in experimenting with sending out a series of messages then please get in touch. P.Koszerek@dundee.ac.uk

Follow Nine-Trader Ange Taggart has forwarded me two great images which she has found whilst trawling the web. I especially love the 'Actual Business Letters' image.

A view from Edinburgh

2010-02-16T10:50:00.001Z

Sent in by Kirsten Body, Collective

Office Visits and a Tour of the Campus

2010-01-29T17:05:00.004Z

Over the last two weeks I have been coming up to Dundee and visiting staff in their offices for a chat and to see their office views for real. I was also taken on a really interesting tour of the University Campus by George who has also submitted a photograph in the blog post below. Here are two photographs that he took during the tour.

Views from their desks

2010-01-29T16:18:00.004Z

As an artist, I sometimes take on temporary contracts as a Secretary to support my art practice. I am always fascinated when I enter new workplaces as a temp to see how the architecture and atmosphere differ from one place to another. I'm interested in how these environments often feel like film-sets, and in my mind's eye I can imagine an event just about to happen. In my project for the Nine Trades of Dundee I'm inviting office staff to email me the views from their desks. Thank you to everyone who has sent in a photograph so far.

The following photographs were taken by: Ewan Munro, Caroline Peters, Fiona Fyffe and Lynne Morris, George Massie, Sally Philips, Ramanee Peiris, Louise Soutar, Daryl Smith and Jonathan Weyers.