This piece will soon be old enough to vote and I last performed it over 15 years ago. So I was pleasantly surprised to get an email from Harun Morrison asking about it.
It got me thinking about the piece, the time it was made in and who I was back then. Here we are with a dual throw back, a blog about an old performance / game.
The Score
The show takes place in a medium to large room. The room is empty and the floor is clean.
An usher controls the door from outside and the queue is set up so people can’t see into the room while they wait.
Before the audience member enters the usher tells them that the performance lasts 1 minute and when it is over they will open the door and ask them to leave.
The audience member walks into the space, I’m stood in the centre facing away from them.
I say “Hi my name’s Ed, welcome to the game of trying to see my face, if you want to see my face you have one minute.”
After that everything which happens is in response to the player’s actions. Mostly people ran around me and it’s surprisingly easy to always turn away from someone.
My personal rule was that I would never cover my face or block their view with my hands, only by turning my face away or moving my body.
If they spoke I would reply honestly within the framework of the game, there really weren’t any other rules, so the player could do whatever they wanted.
(A thankfully small number of people choose violence, but I did get put in a restraint hold and forced to turn a couple of times. They both immediately told me they worked in psychiatric hospitals.)
If someone got a glimpse of my side profile I’d keep playing and say: well done, you caught sight of a sliver can you see the full face?
If they saw my full face I stop, congratulate them and we would have a little chat. About 1 in 50 people would “win”.
I would never volunteer to show my face.
After 1 minute the usher opens the door and says: time’s up, this way please.
I would say: Thank you for playing The Face Game.
The game ends, I stay facing away, if they don’t win I have no idea who the player was.
Inspiration
The piece was inspired by the film 3-Iron in which the protagonist learns how to remain fully hidden from the other people in a room by staying in their blind spots.
From this arose the idea of hiding in plain sight, denying the default face to face connection while making a very open playful offer.
Context
Can you imagine there was once a substantial trend to create one to one performances, it seems impossible in today’s starvation economy in the arts, but there was enough funding going around that people could make work for a single audience member at a time.
I was part of a festival of 1 to 1 shows curated by BAC, each audience member got to experience a journey comprised of different 1 to 1 shows that were situated in an around the building. I presented three 1 to 1s: The Face Game, The First Thing, and Ask Me Anything.
I did close to 1000 minute long shows over the course of the festival and reached a peak of burn out by the end, such that I never really made anymore shows like this one. Thanks to the intentional destruction of arts funding that followed this time I can’t see these kind of works returning in such abundance.
The 1 to 1 show is a powerful container for an audience experience, for reality and relationship to shape the meaning between artist and audience. Maybe I’ll play around with it again some time.
