Centre: Posters in building 80 shortly before being told  of the strict regulations.
Left & right: Posters in building 9, home among the plethora of other Media studio material.

Meeting with Gianna and Marissa early Tuesday morning, we quickly divided a number of SIGNAL posters between the three of us. Intending to post them in the most densely populated and circulated areas in RMIT’s city campus such as Building 9, Building 8, Building 80, and the library. However, we faced a number of issues as we each went to our designated areas.

These specifically included: strict university regulations regarding the posting of advertising material. Being told by a university staff member in building 80 that no material was allowed was quite a shock as this was the building Marissa and I had decided to advertise the most on, due to its popular usage.
However, we quickly liaised and realised more problems were on the horizon as Gianna was told similarly that the library did not allow any posters. Further yet, the only space that would in Building 8 was the RMIT Connect space, which was already (to put it lightly) saturated with posters from other groups.

Regrouping with Marissa, we decided to head off to building 9 and post the flyers where appropriate and allowed (such as the level 2 atelier, level 3 printing space, and at each staircase per level). Additionally, we later went to RMIT Connect to stick the remainder posters where there was room, deciding it was better to oversaturate one space than waste multiple printed posters.

The entire debacle was quite a rigorous way to start the morning, but was significantly enriching in retrospect. For instance, in the space of a 2 hours, Gianna, Marissa and myself were faced with problems individually which we then had to re-communicate to each other online, before again meeting in person to disseminate roles and brainstorm solutions.

The entire process involves a lot of trust and openness to flexible plans, as clearly our original goals were thwarted. Additionally, as Rose was not able to make it, we had to make decisions without her input and thus, were in a situation in which we could have very easily miscommunicated or been unbalanced with our solution (such as giving all the work to a missing group member, or discounting any alternatives due to immediate laziness). Despite this, the three of us were able to maintain communication and achieve our ultimate group goals to distribute posters, and we were even able to do Rose’s allotted posters, as this seemed both effective, pragmatic, and sensible, given the regulations surrounding the process and time bound nature of advertising a temporary exhibition.

In conclusion, I was proud of the way we were able to adjust to the limitations we were faced with, and in the future I know now to read up on or RMIT’s authorities in regards to advertising regulations, as this was a factor none of us had tried.