Rumour Regeneration -
By subverting the tactics of certain advertising agencies, and military methods of propaganda, this project aims to highlight how we perceive local information and the importance put on educating local communities.
Could this be the futile, last ditched attempt to make sure that everybody is well informed, or would it lead to more confusion.
In response to specific areas of community apathy in Vauxhall, London, a Think Tank “IFRA” is running an experimental style of information seeding. The organisation is developing a way to pass on important facts relating to the changes occurring in the local area by spreading factual rumours. Employees are to conduct artificial telephone calls, tempting people to eavesdrop on their conversation, and therefore promoting knowledge of significant developments regarding housing, social and commercial developments in Lambeth South.
A series of auditions were conducted for Conversationalists’ and an office was set up to recruit new employees. Experiments were conducted in Vauxhall, by asking and recording local rumours regarding the new social and commercial developments and regeneration of the area. Extracting rumours was not entirely successful, although the process allowed me to develop different conceptual tactics.
To infiltrate the area, the telephone conversations were drafted and experimented with, testing any results of reception by recording on camera phones as actors conducted their illicit information spreading. Looking at telephone scripts on films and television where information is constructed as a one way transmission, for the audience to understand fully a conversation.
