This week I went back to Powis Castle to accost visitors as they came out the building to ask them questions about the Roman Cat specifically, this time recording their responses. To do this I needed to get them to sign a consent form before they talked to me. I thought the consent form would put people off but in fact most people were happy to proceed, which was extremely good for me.

I had a very productive afternoon and managed to record nine different groups of people. I had some very interesting conversations about the Roman Cat, response to the statue, to the story behind the statue and about the value of objects and art in general (i.e. whether the age of an object is important to its value or whether it is the story behind it that is important).

As before, not many people liked the Roman Cat. In fact I think all of the people I spoke to on this occasion either didn’t have a strong opinion either way or didn’t like it. Only one person thought that it’s genuineness as a real Roman Cat influenced its value.

I now intend to use the recordings I made today to create a kinetic typography animation using phrases and comments about the cat.

Kinetic typography
Kinetic typography

All in all the day was very productive and extremely interesting.