The State Library and the surrounding area is, as is most of the Melbourne CBD, bursting with mediated content. Every direction I looked I could see it in one form or another, whether advertisements or signs, safety warnings or t-shirts, graffiti or litter. All forms of media, shaping the space in which we inhabit.
On the ground we saw an empty Red Bull can, a ‘Free Tram Zone’ notice, and graffiti. Up higher we noticed flags advertising the book festival at the library, statues accompanied by plaques and engravings, the name of a building written across it’s top, and a full size advertising billboard on the side of the Melbourne Central building. Every printed info sheet at the tram stop, timetables, safety warnings, Yarra Trams logos, along with poster ads plastered all over the trams. Every shop-front boasting its business name with a backlit sign above the door, the pedestrians crossing have signs warning for moving trams. Every food wrapper, shopping bag or pair of shoes on someone’s feet brandishes a logo. The staff at the library all wear ID tags, as do many business men and women on the street. Inside the library, there were brochures and booklets, directory signs everywhere, as are books. We also noticed a few screens showing information about various different services that the library offers, we were even asked to be part of a survey. I rarely checked my phone but did use it to check the time and to take photos and video of some media forms. Even listing the responses with an ‘Artline’ pen on paper counted.
Perhaps most blatantly, we were confronted with a “Free Tibet” protest on the steps at the front of the library. Protesters wore laminated paper signs around their necks and held flags, both Australian and Tibetan. They also held up two wide banners with messages on them, and had protesters singing with a microphone and amplifier.
This can’t possibly be everything I encountered in this exercise, it would take more than a few hundred words to list all of those. Consciously noticing mediated communications and attempting to list them all, particularly in the CBD, made me realise just how much communications material there is, and how easily we filter it from our consciousness.
See pictures: http://timlangdon.tumblr.com/post/113245616596/noticing-media-at-the-state-library