Introduction

For the last two years, I have worked in a social research callcentre. Throughout that time - give or take a few months here and there - I have spent four to seven hours a day, four to six days a week, sitting in a booth wearing a headset whilst a computer in front of me dials mostly randomly generated phone numbers until someone answers, at which point I try and persuade them to answer various multiple-choice questions about their life and/or attitudes for between five minutes and half an hour. And repeat. And repeat.

It can get kind of tedious.

Like many people in this type of situation, I found myself doodling idly whilst I worked. I got quite into it after a while. I liked the way my conscious attention was distracted from what I was drawing, freeing up the less analytical part of my mind to wander in a way it wouldn't if I wasn't more focussed on grilling some random about their eating habits/marriage breakup/views on immigration/whatever in between being mesmerised into a vacant zen stupour by dialtones and 'disconnected' bleeps. It made for some interesting psychologistics. We like those.

I eventually bought a notebook especially to doodle in. I filled most of it over about two months. Then some art school I won't name went and lost it. I got a bit over drawing after that, and instead took to relieving the tedium by ripping pieces of paper into thin strips, folding, twisting, curling, chewing and generally mutilating them, and tossing them at my computer terminal.

(I made a bouquet out of some of these strips once, tied with a hairtie I'd found on the ground. I took a picture of it with my phone and posted it to Facebook:

I then gifted it to a colleague, who commented on the photo: "It's concept art. The pay slip in the upper right symbolises the expense involved in making a paper bouquet, which in turn symbolises that a lot of expense can go into making something aesthetically displeasing. Then again, like any St Kilda prostitute this creation shows us how a little whoring up (the purple band) can turn any unattractive drunken prospect into sextime USA.")

Now when I finish a shift, I invariably leave behind a distinctive little twisty pile of paper on whichever computer I've used in whatever booth I've been assigned. They're always similar, but each one is unique.

The other night, after reading about On Kawara, I dreamt about an exhibition of my twisty paper piles, displayed in a seemingly endless row of workstations stretching off into the horizon - one for each of the hundreds of shifts I've worked since I started making them.

And it occurred to me - weirdly, for the first time - to start taking photos.

Comments

[Liv]

Oh, good grief! I always know when you've been at our house... Twisty paper EVERYWHERE.