LIVE ABSENCE
Mediated presence heightens the control I have on my situations but does leave the participant and artist in separate environments. In What Are Other People Like... I wanted to find a balance between this presence and absence so that I too could perform and be perceived with the participants there and then, avoiding a franchised experience.

To try and achieve this I decided that I would be present for the work in the form of different roles. I would act as an invigilator (role 1) to open up the situation by handing the audio guides out to participants. This audio guide would contain my voice, as artist (role 2), taking participants through an improvisation session (part one). I would then make the transition into the encounter group facilitator (role 3) which makes up part two of the work.

The idea is that the participant, assuming they initially don't know the artist, is taken through three encounters which gradually reveal the artist of the piece and after part two, and only then, can they have an exchange with the artist as the artist. This will enable me to control the stages of the work but also take a similar journey to the participants taking on roles and performing alongside.

What Are Other People Like... akin to Chris Burden's White Light/White Heat (pictured):
“captures an experience of presence as processual and performative”
(Kaye, N. Archaeologies of Presence, 2012).

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It attempts to situate itself somewhere between live performance and installation due to the live absence of the artist.