“Hello there, can I help you with anything today?”

Words we’re all to used to hearing. Perhaps some of us are used to saying them too. It’s a basic script that those in the marketing industry use. It may not be laid out on your first day, but you’ll start finding yourself using the same phrases and terms constantly throughout the day. When working at a children’s toy store (I won’t name which as this is online) I found myself using the term ‘Hiya guys, and hello to you [the child], what’s your name?’ quickly followed by ‘Is this [toy] for you? Oh yes, I love this one, this one is my favourite’ regardless of whether it actually was my favourite, or I thought it looked like a fluffy lump of feces.
It’s become almost like a ritual.
What if that ritual didn’t exist? Imagine being a “Customer” walking into a (site specific) store, up to the till, only to be greeted with ‘Just these please’ as who you previously thought was the shop attendant drops a sandwich and a newspaper on the desk. A simple scientific experiment of human reaction, if you will.

As I have an immense passion when it comes to shopping you would have thought I’d be overjoyed at the idea of using a retail setting for site specific. I’m not. I have no ideas what to do or anything relating to retail. I have a million relating to Grantham. Margret Thatcher, Issac Newton……….we’re performing in the George centre which is called that because it was visited by King George. Basically Grantham has a rich tapestry of history and culture I’d love to explore. I also love the idea of using science within a piece, specifically physics.

After today’s session, the ideas I previously had regarding retail therapy are having to be adapted to fit in with the theme of the Gravity Fields festival, so science and shopping, not a mixture you would normally put together. So to start with I began searching to see if anyone has done a piece surrounding these two ideas, I did not expect to find anything but I did! http://vimeo.com/13537420 I found this installation, and it got me thinking… hmmm…  Could a small group of people create the idea of clothes that were made of circuit wires that all connected to one main power source. In addition this idea I then began to wonder if we could show how the brain responds to different shopping situation for example; if its a busy shop and you experience bad customer service or if its a closing down sale and your curious at what is in the sale, so now my next thought process will be if I can link the idea of circuit fashion and the idea of the brain’s responses to shopping situations.

Dear all

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Dominic

I was looking at videos with the idea of a shop like space, and thought it would be a good way of looking at the space and working with it. I like the idea of having the audience look through a window, as it gives the audience a sense of control, they decide how long they watch for. Also it allows the audience to be looking into the action and allows them to have a critical view on it, just like everyday life whilst shopping, everyone criticises everyone due to the choices they make with their purchases. also I thought of the idea of consumption and thought of therapy as a singular word instead of being joint with retail, I have looked at how addiction consumes a person.