Exquisite Corps Audience Participation

Since our Winterstory project evolves loosely around “work in progress” I’ve appropriated an idea for an artwork that I saw in an exhibition in London this spring. Some of you might have seen the exhibition, it was at the White Cube and the name of the show was “You dig the tunnel. I’ll hide soil” – it was based on the writings of Edgar Allen Poe. The work which rationale I intend to appropriate (ok, I know some of you would call it outright stealing, but creativity breeds creativity so I’ll just pretend to not hear the protests) was situated in the basement of Shoreditch Townhall, it had a room to itself and took the shape of a computer placed on a table with a chair in front of it.

The art work consisted in a computer programme which allowed members of the audience to participate in the writing of a novel in the style of Edgar Allen Poe. The computer screen first introduced the audience member to the project which was based on the exquisite corps concept, and then invited visitors to participate. Each writer had the last two or three sentences of the last entry presented to them on the computer screen before they were allowed to write their own piece continuing where the last writer left off. After finishing an entry between 200 and 400 words each writer gave their full name and address to the computer in order for this magnificent machine to send them a copy of the published novel when printed. Of course wrote an entry, but I haven’t received my book yet.

I was thinking we could have one of our Winter-stories produced using the same rationale. We could set up a computer in the Shunt which allowed people to respond to our project in some way. I’m not sure yet whether we should ask visitors to write a novel entry or something else. Maybe we could invite people to write down their responses to our show (the traditional guest book thing) or maybe they could write down a scene from an everyday life that we could use for later performances or maybe they could recommend a good book. I’m just presenting some options. Maybe we could let visitors choose between, say three categories in which to produce a small piece of writing. Maybe they should even be allowed to upload a digital image from their cameras if they’ve brought one.

After the end of the show we could either make a publication in print (expensive) or publicize it on the Internet. (People have to agree to their texts and possible images being publicized, although names is probably not a good idea to publish)

Such a “game” would be in line with the “work in progress” theme we’re working on. I’m sure audience participation would be appreciated in the Shunt collective too. Anyway, I’m interested to know what you think of this idea. As I am no programming expert myself, I cannot be expected to handle such a project by myself. I will need some help from you guys.

Oh, and I’m planning on finishing my text on the Paris workshop by the end of this week. I’ll have to do it while working (as in making money) so if it’s not ready by Friday afternoon, don’t be too disappointed. In any case you can find it on www.junglestories.wordpress.com sooner or later. The URL is the site of my newly born blog which will be where I publish texts related to the Winterstory. Ok, that was a long entry. Take care y’all.

Marthe