Busy doing nothing
I nip in and out of the plinth webcast through the day to see what is to be seen, and there was one guy on Wednesday that has really made me think.
He stood there in a pose that, in my cadet days, was known as ’standing easy’ – legs comfortably apart, hands lightly clasped behind back. He stood near the “front” facing the temporary office structure that has been erected in the square to support the project, and he did nothing.
Not a sausage.
The most exciting bits were when he closed his eyes for a bit in silent thought. He didn’t communicate with anyone, and he didn’t move. My first thought was that this was boring, and I went back to what I wasn’t doing. I came back though, and he was the same. Later on he still hadn’t moved. I didn’t want to watch that and left the webcast for a bit.
I have seen people with telescopes at night (very popular), wacky people with microphones, a gorilla, agendas – lots of agendas, people creating art (the start of a recursion loop that could get messy), people on chairs and loungers, people with messages and props. None of this, however, has made me think more than the guy just standing there.
I admire him. I admire the bravery and the focus. Here I am agonising on what I am going to do with my time when the thing that seems to have made the greatest impact is to do nothing.
That statement alone opens up new avenues that must be explored. What is my motivation? Why is having an impact seemingly so important to me? Has the perfect plinth moment already happened, and if it has what does it really matter. This is not a competition.
Can I copy him?
That would be interesting. To stand there, just thinking, watching the world go by and basically doing exactly the same thing as somebody else. Copying is allowed, that goes without saying, but does it show a paucity of imagination, or an acknowledgement that perhaps doing nothing at all has more meaning than any number of balloons and paper aeroplanes?