SHOWING WITHOUT GOING

Connections

Past liveness re-conjured

I think that it's interesting that this piece can exist in a live way if you simply read out the rules. The projection or threat of the resulting event is already quite palpable, but that a group of people once actually did do this (apparently true - there are photos) somehow grounds it even more - like the weight and inertia of that drunken evening is carried through into the here and now, simply through reading out the instructions / rules of the so-called 'game' - not least of course because the 24-hour news cycle has not stopped since they originally played it. 

Approaches

There are examples of artworks involving instructions which are perhaps only meant to be read or heard, the result of acting upon them left to your own imagination. Perhaps useful to remember: being given an instruction, being told to do something - this of course is real, and it has an effect, regardless of whether or not you carry it out. 

#participation

 

Examples
Forced Entertainment

https://www.forcedentertainment.com/projects/rules-of-the-game/

A bizarre document of an obsessive and darkly comical private performance, Rules of the Game charts the progress of an imaginary drinking game to be played in front of the TV news.  A more recent text-only version of Rules of the Game is included in Do It, an online project curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist. You can read the online text only version of this here.

Approaches

Actions, ideas and activities can take the form of propositional texts - often in the form of directions or a guide - allowing the artistic work to be realised by other people without the involvement of the primary maker. 

#participation