One of Carl Lavery’s “25 instructions for performance in cities” was to listen and record the conversations of strangers in a coffee shop or bar, and use it as a basis of a performance text. Here is our documentation of this event.

Following another of Lavery’s 25 instructions, me and my partner chose to leave messages of friendliness around our chosen city site and document how we did it in a video. Here is a photo of the messages we wrote.

We felt that by doing this the performance was the reaction of the non-players (unaware audience) when they read the messages and took part actively in our performative act without realising what it was.

When reading our messages they were removed from the very public space of the high street and drawn in to a more intimate space between them and the performers without realising they were actively participating.