I had one of my friends lay down in the
middle of the sidewalk in Vaughn courtyard (college campus) to see
what the reaction would be from students walking by and whether are
not they would walk around the body, stop and stare at the body, or
totally ignore the body. I videotaped one encounter where people were
walking by and they looked at me confused about what to do. When
college students see something that is not normal to their everyday
life, or every day life in general, they don't know how to react or
proceed. I noticed that they look around for guidance or answers.
In the video recording I posted there
are two couples walking by at around the same time. Both of the
couples noticed me filming, so they looked at me to tell them what to
do. They would walk around the body laying down in confusion. The
couple with the male and female needed me to tell them they could
keep walking. Once they passed the body, after I stopped filming,
they kept looking back at the body and me to see if I was going to
walk or talk to the body that was laying down.
At one point I let the body lay in the
middle of the sidewalk and I stood far away so people would not think
I had anything to do with this body laying in the middle of the
sidewalk. When I did this students would either stop and walk the
other way, totally ignore the situation, look around in confusion, or
go to the body to see if she was ok, especially since my friend who was laying down has a cast and crutches. Once I started moving closer to
the body, or stood closer to the body, that is when people would look
at me to tell them what to do.
This work of a body laying in the
middle of a sidewalk works best on a college campus in the middle of
their courtyard because it is so wild and different that college
students don't know how to react. College students aren't normally
used to dealing with out of place situations, so their reactions were
the best reactions to get. They need guidance and are used to a
smooth ride that once they encounter an obstacle in their lives, they
don't exactly know how to deal with it.
The point of this project was to see
how people would react when something that is not normal to their
every day life is placed right in front of them. This is an invasion
of personal space and walking space because it was done in the
busiest part of campus. I wanted to see how students would deal with
an awkward situation that they do not see on a day to day basis.
