Feeling quite inspired after watching Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells’ library based The Quiet Volume. The piece looked at the subversion of use in multiple libraries in different locations as well as pointing out the sensory elements we can experience in such a site through the use of audio commandments. Although not in a library setting I was also intrigued by Blast Theory’s A Machine to See With and Janet Cardiff’s brilliant Alter Bahnhof Video Walk both of which cleverly used technology to guide the audience through the piece.
We were set a task to draw two pictures of or around the library building, ideally one larger and one smaller. I chose to draw the view of the building from the road (Brayford Warf East) whilst sat outside the University’s Business and Law building as I felt it displayed the building’s great external architecture and clash of old and new. My second drawing, again using the theme of old and new, was the ‘Break the glass’ emergency button on the wall of ground floor stairwell (digital pictures below). We then had to swap an image with another member of the group to redraw their drawing focussing in on something that had particularly interested us from their version. I was particularly attracted to the overflow trolley up against the wall in the image I was presented with and zoomed in onto that area of the picture in my redraw.
Between sessions our task was to re-situate or respond in whatever way we liked to our area of focus that we had just drawn. I decided to peruse the theme of expanse and overflow in the form of a mood board (below), not necessarily unique to the University Library but the idea of the Library in general. It struck me that Libraries are never finished as there are always more books to be written and added to the collection etc. This made me consider the expanse into the age of digital libraries including e-books and Ipod music libraries in addition to the overflowing trolleys on each floor storing books that haven’t made the cut to be on the shelves not to mention in my opinion the visually most predominant expanse of architecture. With the GCW Library it is clear to see the difference between old and new as modular buildings have been applied to the core that is the brickwork of the original building, as displayed by two of the more central images in the mood board. This also made me consider the landscape surrounding the library and how that has changed and what impact that has had on our site. The most central image on the collage displays the University Library before the enterprise building was built and whilst LPAC was in the early days of construction, therefore the surrounding area looks much more spacious leaving the library standing alone. Bearing in mind that the Library’s restoration was completed in 2006 the photo is less than 10 years old. The idea of expansion and overflow is one I am keen for my group to explore further and with the next session at the Lincolnshire Archives I will be able to track the speed of expansion from a grain storage house to a library.