This new experiment in feedback is interesting. Yes it’s more immediate and unfiltered perhaps. Although I would argue the long messages I get back aren’t exactly filtered either, they’re much more stream of consciousness also. But with that comes a less specific kind of feedback that backs up a lot of what I have learned and I’m not entirely sure how much new knowledge this gives me. The fact that a lot of the feedback from the duration of the show was also given at random times with people I don’t have any interaction with makes it difficult also to come to some conclusions, for example demographics like the age or gender of the writers of those comments. Or how other people’s answers affect what you might write yourself since you can see them before hand whereas in the moment of the intervention everyone was too busy getting on with it at the same time for that to matter too much.
I do in contrast however really like the use of open ended sentences in this context and I think for interventions in particular this is a good way to gather responses, using specific open ended sentences you could gather more specific answers that are pertinent to the event/experience which could be really helpful and even be used within part of the intervention if you did this exercise during the session instead of at the end. Whilst the responses to the show haven’t been exactly revelatory it is always helpful to get a sense of what people’s attitudes are etc. I think this is quite an effective form of response taking but I think it needs to be adapted when possible to suit the situation. I’d use this again but perhaps in a tweaked way.
When it comes to the response the show gets as whole – what I mean by this is the motivations of the project and the exhibition – I have had great anecdotal feedback from people about how vital the discourse the show addresses is and how interesting it is to approach it through art. Now whilst this is great, and I’m glad and grateful to hear it of course, but after all this time I’m finding positive feedback isn’t always very constructive. I suppose I knew this really already but when you are involved in process that relies heavily on trying to learn from failure and critique in a constructive way being told everything is great, more of the same please is difficult to work with. I know this sounds maybe ungrateful but I don’t mean to be. I know there are ways the project can evolve and reflecting on responses is an important part of that process but so far this aspect is surprisingly proving the hardest nut to crack.