The Poetics of Spaces... In the lifts...

Chris Dugrenier 5 years ago
The art college has 5 floors, 6 if we count the research department which is not connected by the 2 lifts that travel the height of the Graham Sunderland building. 
 
Those 2 lifts were my office for 2 days. And, using this transitory space as static had the consequence of creating surprised faces from users who had seen me before in that lift. 
I relinquished my agency and lets others determine my travel.
The first day, I decided to go up and down continually stopping at every floor to document and time the journeys It takes to go up and down...
Nothing revealing there but a physical discomfort as the pull upward and downward made me kind of seasick... 
 
There is the placements people take, leaning against the walls, always opposite me and not facing me, either looking at the mirrors or the doors...
 
There is so little time spend normally in the lift. From basement to 5th floor takes about 2mn, 30s per floor  (check timing)... so there is little time for conversations... The time spend there is a strange kind of waiting while travelling... which in my case makes this space a great thinking environment...
 
When the lifts are not called for action after 1mn, they are automatically travelling down the basement where they remain until they are called. I spent a lot of time in the basement on my first day since there were little students around before Christmas. 
 
2 days in the lift...
A member of staff smiled when he re-entered the lift and saw me there still in the same place he saw me on his way from basement to 3rd floor... 
He started to tell me about his w he used to take the bus in Birmingham with his school friends spending hours doing the circle journey. 
Memory is triggered when encountering unexpected situations...
Today, the 3rd floor was the most requested. I understood why when a member of staff came in with a trolley heavy with rims of A3 papers. She explained that the printers are on that floor.
 
Thinking what could I offer to the people who come in the lift: a make-up lesson, a helping body carrying things, thinking that the time in the lift could be perfect for looking at small art videos/or listening to audio...I could press the buttons for them, have small talks...
Little visual input in that dedicated vacant space...
Little writing: maximum load - 11 persons or 825kgs - the Buttons numbers - alarm - door open - car reference - car light
What does a lift do?
Start with what you know... Start with your own experience, then think about what you don’t know and what you are not sure.. then research those areas...
A lift brings people up and down... a lift a lift up... to lift up... to raise the moral... to spark up someone down...
A lift down... ???
A place for small talks or for silence, self reflection, looking down at the floors, or the mirror... 
4 corners
A small cell...
Someone seeing me for the 3rd time asks: ‘is that your preferred place to think?’
‘Yes’
‘Movement is good for thinking’ she said.
What I am doing is contrary to normal use, which is why people laugh when they see me again...
 A lift is the size of a bed, the mirror doubles the space...
On the phone, he said ‘I’m on the lift, I can’t hear you properly... 
There is nothing to do... little to see... but oneself... I draw a self-portrait that does not resemble me... 
 
 
The texture of the metal doors and walls are like a grey skin texture, from very zoomed in...
The audio messages lack poetry... I guess they have to fulfill a purpose. Their function being to remind people of certain things... 
Make a video of the possible sounds/audio that could be heard: call to prayers, what the floor specialism is, what the floors used to be, what the future holds
Mirrors... doubling distance... but why as it does not make the space bigger...