I wanted my project to combine the various ideas and theories we have explored in VCT. The themes of boundaries, public space and interaction are ones I found most interesting because of their ambiguity and how undefined they can be. I chose to explore through interacting with strangers in a public space how people will still demand their private space and create a personal threshold to traverse during general interaction. I wanted to challenge that idea by crossing those boundaries and having an intimate, even if momentary, relationship with the person in a public space. I decided to approach it with a dominant feature that would put the person at ease and consequently distract them from the fact that I would be documenting our contact. I wanted to collect a series of facts or opinions unique to each person however approaching that with out a particular reason was the issue I had to address. I decided that a vaguely humorous approach would be more likely to get the results I was aiming for initially. I choose to find busy yet open areas in London, approach people with a bunch of balloons and ask them to write a secret of their choice on it. I felt that this would encompass the crossing of a boundary in a public space in addition to providing me with a physical connection to the transitory interaction.

Primarily what I found to be most interesting however in reality not extremely surprising was the reluctance of the majority of the people I approached to stop to look at me never mind take a free balloon and talk to me. I was repeatedly mistaken for a charity worker and even got completely ignored a small number of times. I consequently tired to approach people that gave me the impression that they were in no rush to be anywhere else. I asked people waiting outside tube stations and sitting on benches. The fact that they did not appear to have an immediate excuse to escape proved to be more successful than people who were obviously just wandering around the city. Since they were in motion they were more reluctant to stop.

When I managed to get to the point of explaining to the person what I actually wanted I felt that the fact that they could put up another barrier helped in them agreeing to participate. I would explain that they could write any secret and that the balloon would be covering their face in the photograph I would take of them with it. This immediately seemed to relieve whoever I had approached and then the communication would almost immediately turn into a comic nature and they would, generally with great enthusiasm, write a secret on a brightly colour balloon in the middle of the street and put it in front of their face. Yet when I asked if they had a minute to spare the general response was refusal until the explanation.

I feel from the results and insight I have gained into this type of interaction in the city that it evidently merges with several of the ideas we have explored about public, private and liminal spaces and restrictions obviously with in the city itself. As well as challenging various strangers’ perceptions of interaction with the unknown and how revealing a part of them is probable if their identity can stay hidden with in a barrier. This is to compensate for the one that I had as a result have broken when they share a piece of private however irrelevant, humorous or fictional information with me.