| Mon, Nov 7, 2022, 8:38 PM  | | ||
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Hello all (bcc),
I have spoken to you all individually over the last few weeks about a show that 3405charles.club is performing. Thank you for considering being a part of this.
Some Background:
We are turning Kevin's house in East Austin TX into a bodega where you could get most of your sundries. The majority are made from plaster in various types of molds of real products and accompanied by a QR code that has more information about the item as well as some additional web elements that put more of the concepts for the show into focus. Here are some images of them for reference:
In addition to the molds of products, there will also be a delicatessen that is operated remotely by a touch screen where people will be able to receive a sandwich from a conveyor belt to be purchased from the cashier (you!).
Here is the website: https://3405charles.club/ -- I'm going to update that main image tonight, don't you worry.
There are many themes at play here but to boil it down to the essentials it is mainly supposed to be a fun experience that tries to play up some darker themes about alienation and the spiritual staleness (to put it lightly) of the modern western world, online and otherwise.
You do not have to but if you would like to read more about the themes there is a document here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C9kNDvq0nzG4zudmVtwtUhU8tjpO7d5lkp7VOL9P-Tg/edit?usp=sharing - there is another document that describes how the conepts are acheived with the specifics in the show if you would like to see that.
I am by no means an expert in any of this and I don't think anyone has to be in order to participate.
All the items for sale will be around $5 to make a dent in recovering costs but we're certainly not going to be getting rich off this endeavour.
Your Task:
People will come to the bodega and try to purchase sundries. You will perform the role of cashier from wherever you'd like to be via zoom. Here is a rough mock-up of what the cashier space will look like from a customer's perspective and a layout of the space:
I expect the interaction to go like this:
- customer picks a product for purchase (plaster, or sandwich or otherwise)
- approaches the zoom cashier
- cashier instructs them to place the item in the drawer
- i am physically on the other side of the curtain to pull the item over
- i tell you on the zoom chat how much money to charge them
- push the drawer back out for cash or provide them QR code to venmo cul-de-sac-2 on venmo if they don't have the cold hard stuff
- make change, and return the item in a bag
Of course, lots of other things can happen. I expect some amount of confusion, connection problems, audio problems, but in my experience from the last time we put on a show people are forgiving and if anything else it adds to the gentle alienation that comes with remote labor.
Any amount or type of small talk can happen here.
Talk about the weather, show off your dog, pretend your the HR person running a team-building exercise, be cooking a meal, forget you're on mute, ask for ID, tell them they're on mute, say it's your first day, tell them to put on a mask, say it's your last day and you've been working there for 30 years despite it just opening yesterday, ask them to not have a mask on, say that your district doesn't require masks so you're not sure, etc. You have a lot of freedom to make this your own and it should be fairly low stakes.
...But I would ask that you please do not make it absolutely unbearable for them, we have to make sure we get good yelp reviews after all ;) .
I ask that everyone involved do at least an hour, but we can do less or more if necessary.
It is difficult to impossible to know when people would be coming, if anyone would come at all, if they would even want to buy anything, what the general reaction will be, so please be ready for things to be a little rough around the edges. I'm sure people will be asking where things are, what things are, you can have fun with this or say you don't know. I will be there with you on the zoom chat and physically there with the customer should things really go awry.
Depending on other developments as we get closer to the show this information may change but I will update all of you as soon as I can if that is the case. I will have a schedule set by Saturday at the latest and some updated info. Check back at the "documentation" link above to see more items being added.
To Do:
- Please let me know your availability as soon as you can for Sunday 13 and 20 11AM-5PM EST. If you can't make it, no worries~
- If you know anyone else who would be interested and have fun with this I would love to see if we can fit them in
- Let me know if you have an idea for a "character" you'd like to embody or an activity/theme you would like to be working with during your session.
- If you have any questions or need clarification or if me speaking with you rather than emailing would be helpful please let me know.
I would like to keep it fairly simple for the first weekend show to see what our limitations are.
Credit:
I would like to make sure you receive credit for your work on this. How would you like to receive credit? Would you like to? I usually update the main site after a show to document what happened and who helped. This is from the one in 2018. https://3405charles.club/studioEast2018/archive/thankyou.html
I can include socials or links to your own works if that's something you want.
Unfortunately I cannot update information that is on the big medium website as that was locked into their system in July (lame).
As we are all remote I would be very happy to get you a pizza or some gig'd up delivery from the proceeds of this.
The initial thought was to have a newspaper but it looks like we won't be able to do that in time and it will be $$$ so we may print a zine that has the names of the participants and perhaps a little blurb if you would like.
Thank you all so much for considering participating in this!
Let me know at your soonest convenience when you will be available and ask any questions you may have.
Love,
Jonathan
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