People Watching Tour
Interactive performance in collaboration with artist Britt Van Groningen for the Prague Quadrennial
June 2019
Find the man with nothing on his mind.
Find the girl with the suitcase that could crush her.
Find the one with the itchy feeling
Find the boy with the pocket full of rocks.
People Watching Tour is a 25-minute performance in the form of a guided tour in a busy public space. Ten headphone-wearing participants are taught the basics of how to people watch. The tour takes the participants to three different locations and formations.
The participants start in an inconspicuous place. They are given newspapers and coffee to watch people without being detected. The tour guides voice teaches them how to unearth fictional stories of passers-by’s. After the basics of people watching have been learned the participants move to a new locations. The voice urges them to elaborate on the absurdity of the invented stories and to experiment on their own.
The group of participants becomes a performance in itself. The impossibility of being discrete as a large group of people watchers leads to humorous situations.
This piece premiered (with the title Iris) at the Prague Quadrennial as part of Formations curated by D. Chase Angier and Serge Von Arx.
