Jackson St - Creative Industries

Finally after a long night of setting up (I think we might have literally been one of the last groups) the market was ready to go go go!!!! The night before people were getting tired and little stressed, so I think it was exciting to come back in the morning and be prepared to knock this one out. 

It was hard to be aware of how the rest of the market was doing, but I think our stall was fairly popular.  I think the experience of the stall for the individual varied greatly depending on how many other people were in the stall with them. If it was only them, it was a little awkward since there were four of us, they would just kind of walk in and be polite, but not stay. But if there were heaps of people it would just clog up and I struggled to explain the voting system (that was Ginger Spice’s role) to so many newcomers, also Mario Kart would be filled up, and the crowds would block the museum and the voting system. 

The aesthetic of the stall turned out well though, the place was thoroughly decked out and many people were in awe at the sheer quantity of stuff we had. It was not only a trip back in time, but bit of a trip in general.

Millar looks a tad tense for some reason ahaha

People #loved the games

Quite a few people huddled on the bed and obsessed over the Tamagotchi’s

I also made a sign for the Nyan Cat in the hallway, if anyone wants to know who did that, it was me lol. Though someone took it down before I could get a photo of it hanging up.

Also there was a delay with my package of posters from my family (shout out to NZ Post) so unfortunately they didn’t arrive on time, if you were wondering where they were. Would also like to say that I made sure to put my shelves on the free shelf in the Industrial Block so there wasn’t any waste. 

A journey of emotions... That was made sure. The system of exchange of emotions started out promising, by scanning over t-shirts and posters using the zapper app that turned words of hate, into love. It was a clever idea to introduce the idea of a journey of emotions, however, beyond the entrance, this feature wasn’t carried out and perhaps would have been more successful if it was applied consistently throughout the market. 

According to Michael Hardt and Paolo Virno, immaterial labour can be defined as a “labour that produces an immaterial good, such as a service, knowledge or communication”. Using emotion as the system of exchange was an interesting, non obvious choice as it is not one examples given by but fits across service, knowledge and communication. 

There was a fairly diverse range of offerings but we felt as though there could have been more stalls that offered positive emotions and some stalls were pretty marginal in what was appropriate such as jokes about cancer could have been extremely insensitive depending on the person. A stall we thought was very successful was the happy room that was right at the start of the market; drenched in yellow with heaps of enthusiasm from the group, it instantly made us happy, unfortunately from here the mood deteriorated as many stalls had run out of their offering or were packing up before we were even halfway through this had us dumbfounded and was very disappointing. It portrayed to us that they didn’t want to be there and and now neither did we as we felt like we were intruding. 

I think we were all very pleased with how the market turned out and there is likely to be a post focusing on it soon, but I thought I’d post some photos from today while its fresh! 

The greatest girl group of all time (Pikachu is a Scary stand-in)

Such a great costume!

The Purge, dir. James DeMonaco, 2013. 

Esther wore this and then we promptly kicked her out of the group to maintain authenticity. (Spice Girls joke)

Rugs taped down because safety is always a priority over aesthetics.  

Mario Kart is no laughing matter.

From about 4:00 to 8:30pm we set up our stall and I think I can speak for everyone when I say we are exhausted. We’re pretty happy with how it’s turned out and from the reaction of our Abandoned Materials peers its going to be a hit. We just have to make sure we are inviting, our costumes look good and we engage with everyone/ inform everyone of how the space works. It took a while for us to figure out how we were going to arrange the “King of Nostalgia” voting part but we got there in the end. We also installed new batteries into a Furby (he talks now and reacts to touch but does not move) and 4 Tamagotchis (we had 5 but 1 is beyond repair) Anyway Taylor took some pics of the space that I’ll post below but that’s all I can do for now as I am incredibly close to falling asleep so I can actually function tomorrow...

What it looks like upon entering (the plastic bag will be gone that’s just holding the Duplo for now

Suspended Furby backpack along with gaming zone (excuse our bags) 

Interactive corner as well as lava lamp + books! 

The King of nostalgia plinth + the smaller representations of characters/ toys to vote for with Duplo (king goes up top, second below etc etc)

During the market, it was suggested that someone spout facts and create general conversation around the nostalgic items. I thought I would look up nostalgic movies, tv shows, toys, books and music that feature in our market and hopefully try to remember some of them for the day. All of this information has been pulled from Wikipedia pages devoted to each specific topic, however, it is in my own words.

Tamagotchi:

Tamagotchi was released worldwide a year later than Japan in 1997.

Its name is a combination of the Japanese word for egg (hence the shape of the toy) tamago and the watch (it does look like a stopwatch) 

Furby:

Furby was released in 1998 and sold 40 million in its first three years.

The second edition, which was more advanced (which features in the market) was released in 2005. 

Bratz:

The first four Bratz dolls were released in 2001.

They have received backlash since their conception due to the doll’s exaggerated features and arguably sexualised/ hyper-feminine image that could be damaging to young girls. 

They tried a Bratz revival in the recent years which was not met with success in comparison to their massively popular originals. 

Spice Girls: 

Their debut single “Wannabe” was number 1 in 32 countries.

“Spice Up Your Life” was released 20 years ago. 

They are the most successful female group of all time, along with being one of the most successful pop groups of all time.

The comedy film featuring the Spice Girls, “Spice World” was released in 1997 and was a box office hit in the US.

In 1998 Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice) left the Spice Girls due to conflict with the group. 

Pokemon:

Pokemon is Nintendo’s second most popular gaming franchise (Mario being the most popular) 

Pokemon was created in 1996, first as a video game before many spinoffs were made including the popular TV show which was introduced in 1997.

As of now, the Pokemon anime screens in 98 countries across the globe.

Ash Ketchum, the protagonist of Pokemon, shares his first name with one of the Pokemon creators, Satoshi Tajiri, in the Japanese/ original version.

Dragon Ball Z:

Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z (The sequel to Dragon Ball) was an adaptation of the late 80′s- early 90′s manga by Akira Toriyama. The show began screening in Japan in 1989.

By 1996 the English dub of Dragon Ball Z for the USA started, but the amount of episodes were reduced and the dub of the show was cancelled after two seasons. 

Re-runs of the North American version began airing on Cartoon Network in 1998.

Betty Spaghetty:

The dolls were released in 1998 and were popular for a while, before being discontinued in 2004. A few years later they released them again, but discontinued them again after little success. They began selling a modernized version last year which is still currently for sale.

Diva Starz:

Released in 2000

Much like a Furby in that it was essentially a robot, but instead resembling girls, Diva Starz talked and reacted to the clothes you dressed them in. 

In 2002 Mattel created a new design that was thin and tall, rather than the chunky hard plastic dolls they once were. They looked more like Barbie or Bratz dolls and their sales declined before the entire Diva Starz franchise was discontinued.

The Simpsons: 

The Simpsons, although drawn very differently to how most of us think of them appeared on television for the first time in 1987, on the comedy sketch + musical show The Tracey Ullman show.

In 1989, The Simpsons became its own show on Fox.

In Japan, Lisa Simpson is the most marketable character and she managed to increase the popularity of the show due to her good nature that resonated with Japanese viewers.

Now is the time to make sure this market is actually going to work, and be good. Especially after seeing the other two markets, the pressure is on to top them, and by being last, our market technically has a strong advantage. 

We have decided to hang up sheets from the electrical wire trays that hang from the ceiling to form walls, since those movable walls that we were ambiguously promised don’t seem to be a happening thing any longer. So I got my ladders license and plan to bring in some sheets and clothes pegs. We also now have a space at the end of the building, so we can use the movable curtain as another wall.

I also need to get my costume for Ginger Spice sorted, so I went op-shopping, and this seemed perfect until I saw the price tag for $40+. Um no, since when was being environmentally friendly so elitist? 

Settled for just buying a Union Jack instead and toga-ed it. It was either that or cut a neck hole and poncho it. But that would render the flag fairly useless after I had hacked at it and that’s not very waste conscious. Good news is that the toga turned out pretty well.

I also needed to make some shelves, so I used some leftover MDF from my elective (plus an extra small sheet I bought) to make some shelves that would surely die if anything more than some lightweight toys sit on them, so I guess they suit their purpose well enough.

(They are just sitting on top of each other, they can be moved around to whatever arrangement the group wants.)

Something we have really noticed while experiencing the other markets was people in groups not having a set role and just sort of standing around with nothing to do.. To prevent this from happening we have come up with 4 facilitation roles.

1. The game guider- Harry (sporty spice). He will be on watch of the game to make sure it all runs smoothly, people aren't hogging and explaining how the game works.

2. Greeter- . Taylor/me (baby spice) Someone will be at the entrance welcoming people in a friendly manner and explaining the king of nostalgia voting system of exchange then handing them the piece of duplo over. 

3. King of nostalgia/ security guard- .Esther(ginger spice) This person will be keeping an eye on the system of exchange making sure people are participating as well as explaining what to do if anyone is confused especially when it comes to the grab and move stage of the voting system. This person will also be keeping an eye on the valuable items as we don't want them to be touched

A journey of emotions, That was made sure.

The system of exchange involved downloading the app zappar and then scanning posters, t-shirts and cards to gain entry to the market. The scannable items such as posters had negative things such as “Hey asshole” “disgusting” etc written and then when scanning over it would transform into something positive such as “beautiful”. This fits the theme of a journey of emotions well as it initially made you feel bad/ confused and then made you smile and laugh. It was a super clever and exciting system of exchange, however, I noticed after the entrance it became inconsistent and I didn’t really see the posters throughout the rest of their market nor did I have to scan it to gain entry to any of the stalls which defeated the purpose of being a system of exchange.

The origami station was one of the first we visited, this stall involved sitting face to face with a student who got us to draw all over a piece of paper what we felt when thinking of the colour red. We then turned our “masterpiece” into an origami swan which was taught to us step by step. While it was fun, I didn’t fully understand the immaterial aspect of the whole thing and It actually took quite awhile and I found myself almost wanting to leave before I’d even finished! The stall did, however, flow with the theme as them emotions were evoked through the colour of red and it was really interesting to see different perspectives on what this colour meant to different people.

The Pictionery stall was a really fun way to evoke emotions. While one person was blindfolded with a pen, the partner was given headphones with music blasting loud who was then showed an object to instruct the partner to draw. It was frustrating and hilarious all in one, which achieved exactly the theme of a journey of emotions. 

Upon entering the actual market there was a happy room which was flooded with warm yellow everything which I thought was actually really successful and instantly made me feel happy especially accompanied by the enthusiasm conveyed from this group! We played musical chairs and when we sat down the person across from us became our drawing partner. We were instructed to draw a portrait of them using anything but hands, this was extremely amusing watching peoples techniques and even funnier seeing the outcomes! I would say this was a super successful stall in getting happy moods going right from the get-go, unfortunately, my mood deteriorated from here; and not in the deliberate way they were trying to get us on a journey of emotions. As I'm sure you will read in my teammate's reviews, many stalls had run out of stuff OR had already begun packing up (at 11.20) before we were even halfway through exploring the market. This was hugely disappointing and extremely unprofessional it definitely portrayed to us that they didn’t want to be there and now neither did we.. This made us feel like we were intruding and needed to leave.

Overall it wasn’t a complete fail as I've heard from the stream that got to go in first that they actually had a good time, unfortunately, they didn’t keep up the act for the stream critiquing them. I really enjoyed the entrance of the market apart from the long wait as well as the crying room and don’t get me wrong there were some beautifully executed rooms such as the garden room, however, the offer was lacking and I didn’t really understand what was going on. The system of exchange had so much potential but fell short by a long way and the overall atmosphere was pretty unwelcoming.

The theme of emotional turmoil was clear from the beginning with the Zappar app, turning words of hate into positive words, felt like I was being gaslighted a bit to be honest, haha. True to the theme. A lot of people were wowed by the app, and it meant that we had something to do while we waited (for not a short amount of time), and it also set a high bar for the rest of the market.

However, unlike the Impossible Things market, that sense of anticipation wasn’t lived up to once the market fully unfolded. At the biscuit stall there were more crowds and waiting, (however the biscuit stall’s list of ingredients as a health and safety was a nice touch). The system of exchange was also completely unclear, I can’t even remember it, or remember participating in one.

The next two stalls were good, I liked how you were deliberately led through in sections to be fully immersed in each experience. After the yellow musical chairs stall, we were left to an open plan layout, where you could just mingle through. However, the market lost its cohesiveness from that point. When I would try and engage with a bunch of emotive photos, my ‘reaction’ was altered instead by the music I was hearing from another stall.

Though overall there was good engagement with the emotive theme, I particularly remember one stall where you tried to set up a card tower to stressful music and flashing lights, you were put through a proper, emotionally trying experience, rather than just walking in and out. I thought it was well done. Each of the stalls seemed to offer something different, and most were interactive, individually they were well-developed and operated pretty well.

I went through some of my old Mania and Kzone magazines (which were buried deep in the wardrobe in our spare room, which may I say retrieving them was a workout and a half) to find old ads and “articles” to rip out that we can stick up as posters, as we have quite a few printouts and having cutouts in the mix will help make things look a little more authentic and less half-assed (not that the printouts were half-assed if anything they cost Taylor an arm and a leg, but having only printed pictures could detract from the rest of the genuine throwback stuff) Esther is trying to track down some posters and I have to go pick up some creme magazines from my friend’s little sister tonight, which will hopefully have some stuff to work with. In an earlier post, I put up some signs, but since we now have the voting system I made one for that too. 

I used an image of King Bob from Recess to epitomize the idea of the King of Nostalgia (Recess first began screening in 1997, people my age grew up with reruns of the show on Disney Channel) The image provides clear instructions in a hideously juvenile font (PERFECT!) with the adorable Duplo logo (which takes us back to early childhood) 

Second thing on the agenda are the “costumes” (second hand clothes that vaguely resemble spice girls characters) I bought a slipdress to wear over a mockneck tshirt and some 90′s looking sunglasses which I posted to the group chat. I’m getting a small cross necklace from my sister today as Posh wore something similar, and possibly another necklace or choker for someone to wear.  

Taylor went to Savemart and sent some possibilities to the group chat too and here is the one that she felt less uncomfortable in. The other one was more appropriate for Baby but she just has to wear a top underneath. 

Because our costumes are not necessarily going to be incredibly obvious (I refuse to get a side fringe bob wig) I made name tags for all of us to wear too. They are a great throwback to the slightly cringy graphics that the Spice Girls used on their albums and promos. I made both Scary and Ginger so Esther can decide which is best for what she can find at an op shop, rather than me waiting.

“Since the production of services results in no material and durable good, we might define the labor involved in as immaterial labor…” (Hardt 94)

The market addressed the theme somewhat successfully. Unfortunately, they had the hardest theme, as Immaterial is more difficult to define/ unfamiliar than the rest. Because of this, the market itself wasn’t entirely obvious in its delivery of the theme but I think they did well with the hand they had been dealt. For instance, I personally expected fewer resources to be used because they are material, and often require material labour, but after clarifying with some people from that group, it was more focused on the immaterial labour of emotions. After reading about immaterial labour as well, I think I understand it better. This could have been made clearer, but as I said, I assume it wasn’t the easiest thing to execute.

The atmosphere was incredibly disappointing. Things were promising at first when we got to eat a cookie and engage in the augmented reality (although the “I HATE YOU/ I LOVE YOU” gag was a bit pointless.) But it was probably largely a negative experience because everyone in my group felt like we were a burden for most the time we were there. There were definitely teams who had put a lot of effort into the decoration of their stalls and were committed to whatever persona they had to adopt in order to create whatever emotion they were supposed to. However, we had to wait around for a bit before being allowed access, and before we could see all the stalls many of them started packing up or had already packed up. This was before midday. One stall, that involved painting, told us they were “closed” before changing their mind, another that involved yarn was already empty, another where you chopped up onions was supposedly doing its last session, and as we were exiting through the rainbow crepe paper fringe hanging on the ceiling (which was supposed to be the last hurrah of the market) people were tearing them down around us. 

The system of exchange was hard to understand. I am still unsure as to whether their currency was the zappar app (because that disappeared pretty quickly as we navigated the market) or our labour of feeling specific emotions. As I acknowledged before, the theme was challenging but I feel the idea of playing with people’s emotions is not ideal. I think particularly in a stressful environment like a university, intentionally making people sad, anxious or frustrated is counterproductive. I also don’t see what we gained from these particular stalls other than high blood pressure.

There was a relatively diverse range of offerings, but there should have been more that were related to positive emotions or perhaps entirely different offerings, to begin with. As I mentioned earlier one stall told us they were closed because they were out of canvases which had us dumbfounded, but then they managed to find some and let us have a go at their stall. We were directed to a wall covered in printouts of heartwarming this but mostly of tragedies including the Las Vegas terrorist attack. I felt this was a terrible idea to subject us to this, particularly since the world is so saturated with these dreadful images already. Then we were told to paint in one colour that summarized how we felt after seeing the images, which I felt was a relatively futile thing to do.

The house of cards stall was interesting and I felt the group was good at pretending to be oblivious as to what they were doing. But essentially we were being kept prisoner until we had built a house of cards, while they were “accidentally” bumping the table and scraping a plate with a knife. It was kind of funny how frustrating it was, but I also think it had the potential to be a very horrible experience for some people that don’t handle things like that as well. I was laughing but I still felt a bit riled up for a bit afterwards. I never was able to build a house of cards in the end.

The Pity Party stall was by far the most aesthetically pleasing stall and they had clearly put a lot of effort into it. All the members had bedazzled tears on their cheeks, the funeral setup for various framed crying memes was amusing and the blue balloons cascading from a giant pair of printed eyes were really cool. They also had a bed which is what we want to do too. I thought it was very fun and the members of the group (particularly the guy reading “sad jokes”) put a lot of effort into being good hosts. My only complaint was that the jokes were supposed to be quite sad/ dark humour and I felt that cancer etc being a punchline, despite them wanting a reaction, isn't the best idea.

Sorry for going over word count quite significantly, I got a bit carried away as I’m still a bit passionate about how unwelcome we generally felt. Overall, there were some great moments but the same amount of enthusiasm wasn’t there in comparison to Impossible Things.

Works Cited: 

One thing that was obvious from the beginning was the attitude of all the people involved, there was instant enthusiasm and an effort to be in character and engaged, even the the safety briefing was made interesting and not banal. There was a certain level of mystery from the get go with the entrance being covered by balloons, and then with the lava jump to taking a pill, the ‘risk’ made you loosen up and also created anticipation for what was to come. 

First seeing the Pit with all the decorations, darkness, music and gifs made for a very atmospheric market.  Our group enjoyed the cloning station, and then going in a direct path down to the fortune telling provided very engaging and deliberate one-on-one experiences. The staggering of the groups made for a very efficient flow, meaning that you could take your time to enjoy the stalls without there being lines or crowds, anything to distract from the experience. Our group especially enjoyed the Apocalypse Mirrors and the Jumbo Pictionary stalls, they were novel and well put together. The currency (Snapchat??) wasn’t that successful however, it was confusing and didn’t have anyone monitoring it, also a pain to take your phone out all the time.

wed 4th after the market of immaterial labour- book tv for tuesday and wednesday, test that we can darken the area for the game

Thur 5th- make shelving finished by 4pm

Fri 6th- get together cellotape, blue tack and safety pins and string! Millar get posters from friends house

Saturday 7th- Harry go home to Wanganui for weekend- collect bike pump and air mattress form home

Sun 8th- Learn some facts about the items and write them down to share with people coming through. Get together spice girl outfits by end of day.

Mon 9th- make cardboard boxing to cover tv and computers 12pm and print (more) posters

Tue 10th- Bring in EVERYTHING that’s not already at uni before 1pm class. 4pm get signed off to start setting up

-put up sheet walls

-hang posters

-make bed

-place stuff on shelving (no touch)

-place stuff people can touch

-put up signs: touch, no touch, entry, exit, king of nostalgia, game area

- set up tv- link laptop for games

- put cardboard over tvs

We wanted to implement a voting system to add depth and extra interaction to our stall. The voting system would allow participants to choose a item that invokes the most nostalgic feelings for them and upvote it. We were struggling for a long time to decide on the best method of voting until I had a brain wave whilst playing with some duplo at home. 

As a participant enters our stall they will be welcomed and handed a piece of duplo with an explanation. The will be instructed to place the piece of duplo next to the item that provokes the most nostalgic feelings. If someone else already had voted for that item, the participant will add their block to the stack. They will than be eligible to interact with the rest of the store. 

We have noticed that successful teams in the market of impossible things had gone above and beyond the get in character by wearing costume instead of mufti. We found this to be way more engaging and professional. We have decided to dress up as the infamous 90′s girl band, the spice girls. Millar is posh spice, Harry is sporty spice, Esther is undecided; either scary or ginger and me as baby spice. I have collected some outfit inspo for us below.

Baby spice wears piggy tails, pink and skimpy desses. Scary spice has crazy afro hair and often leopard print. Sporty spice wears sports gear. Posh spice wears black. Ginger spice often wears blue and the union jack!

Now we’re off to get some costumes to...