ambient light

Reduce energy. Create incentives for turning lights off.

Ambient light in urban living creates fantastic shadows

listening devices

• Do we need a way to hear each other in crowded places
  
• Do we need listening devices?
  
• Reinvented ear trumpets?
  
• Whispering tubes?
  

places of non consumption

What places might be considered to be zones of non consumption?

• credit crunched closed down shops
• places of worship
• libraries
• park benches any public seating
• parks

What characteristics to they have?

• empty, quiet, still, light, not crowded?
  
• for reflection, contemplation, peace and quiet?

negotiating crowds

Sometimes making your way through crowds of people can be hugely frustrating. Envisage yourself floating above the crowd. Perhaps a step to let you perch on a shelf overlooking the street would be a moment for time out before you lower yourself in to the current again.

negotiating urban space

Time lapse films of certain urban spaces. Data from a snap shot survey of types of people: Man, woman, child etc, and whether or not they were carrying anything: bag, rucksack etc, would imply that men are less encumbered, more relaxed?

Churchill Square : 

Saturday 12th September 9.45-10.15

Woman with bag: 94

Woman with child/ren :29

woman with nothing:6

Man with child/ren:17

Man with rucksack: 22

Man with bag: 15

Man with nothing: 73

the colour of midsummer

Nearly everyone who responded to my Do you need time out? survey has a preference for a rural or natural environment and outdoors rather than indoors. Perhaps this is predictable . Perhaps there is some kind of collective subconsciousness that responds positively to growth? This is midsummer on the england scottish border : as much green as I have seen in the past year, without a building in sight.

eye movements

My survey 'Do you need timeout' has also generated ideas from areas such as the treatment of post traumatic stress, where unanticipated triggers can provoke spontaneous memories that cause panic attacks. EMDR Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing is a technique where the patient is encouraged to use bilateral eye movements (e.g left-right-left) when recalling traumatic and distressing events. This technique has been found to reduce the intensity of the  memory. I am wondering whether there might be a connection between this and the sensation you get on a speeding train? I often find my thought processes run smoother when I am in motion - watching the world go by?

hiding places

Getting peoples preferences on their version of a space for time out has generated some good nuggets of ingredients to chew on so far:

• ' a haven of the unexpected' that is 'deliciously enclosed' 
  
• ' a womb like flotation tank'
• ' pre-menstrual huts complete with stacks of plates for smashing'
• ' padded cells'

with 

• 'natural colours and patches of intense pigment'
•  wind and breezes quite popular