Research & Experimentation: Interactive
For this experiment, I wanted to play with the interactive side of my idea, to have people actually fill the table themselves. However, I don't know if the general public would be interested in contributing to my project or not. To trial it, my tutor suggested I use my peers and so I did. I drafted up the questions a few nights before to give myself time to add in anymore that I'd missed and the final questions turned out to be:
1. How do you feel about your family?
2. Who are you closest too in your family?
3. Describe your father (or paternal figure) in three words.
4. Describe your mum (or maternal figure) in three words.
5. Describe your siblings in a word.
6. What do you wish you could say to your family but can't?
7. What is a reoccurring argument in your family?
We did the experiment in the morning, I gave all the participants a piece of napkin and an invisible pen and asked them to answer the questions as my tutor read them out loud. I actually felt really nervous about the experiment because I wasn't sure if people would fill it out seriously or not, but they did and I was happy with that. My tutor added some more questions to the list as we went, the additional ones were:
8. If you could describe art in one word, what would it be?
9. If you could say something to something to someone in college but can't for some reason, what would it be?
10. What is your current mood? And Why?
11. All in all how do you feel about your work at the minute?
12. Honestly are you putting your all into your work and trying your best?
Though not all are particularly relevant to my work, it was good to get a sense of general mood as people's answers will change due to mood. For example: the napkin I filled in Birmingham was quite negative because I'd been in an argument with my dad, but when I've filled out my own surveys (in a better mood) they've been quite positive, so I understand why she asked these questions.
I then asked for the participants to repeat the questions, this time on paper with a visible pen to see if their answers changed at all. I asked them to fill out a little evaluation after the initial part of the experiment to see if the answers changed and if the pens made any difference, the whole process took about an hour. Out of the nine people who did the exercise, five said they changed answers in pen, four said they didn't. With such a close result I think I'd need to have a bigger sample size, but it does seem clear that it just depends on the person whether they're more honest or not and that pen type doesn't seem to factor into it. I, myself, changed answers that could be seen because I felt I could be more honest with the UV pen, it felt more anonymous and I was more willing to share details. Not all my classmates were there so I may ask the others who weren't if they'd be part of the experiment to see how it would work out with a bigger sample size.
I do think the experience was interesting however, and the interaction side really worked well. As the participants filled out the surveys they talked and said it was cool to write in UV and that the concept was really interesting so I definitely think I want to have that side to my outcome. I think it would really interesting as even the setting - being in a public space - will be different and will hopefully have an impact on the result as it's more open and a wider range of people will pass through so should give a variety of answers. I'm really happy with the results I've gotten and I really want to carry this interactive side of art through to my outcome.
