A isn't just for action, its for Anti Design.

This week London is playing host to The London Design Festival and with that, The Anti-Design Festival. Made in response to LDF, (sorry in advance for all the abbreviations) ADF is a reaction to '25 years of cultural deep freeze, and attempts to unlock creative fires and ideas, exploring spaces hitherto deemed out-of-bounds by a purely commercial criteria.' Showing as part of the festival, is my piece The End of Art.

For those of you who may not know, The End of Art takes the form of a guided tour, around an already existing exhibition. The tour is conducted by a sales rep and the piece explores what a world, where art is mass produced like fashion or furniture, would really be like. Quite often the audience are unaware of the piece before it takes place but, through attending the work, are invited to question what art is, or can be, and what the roles of the gallery or the institution actually are.

Being performed every other day, yesterday was the first run of the piece in the ADF space. Having re-worked the script to fit its new setting, the flow of the piece and the space in which it is situated work really well- its just the audience, or lack of one, that seems to be a problem.

I know it was only the first day, and being a Tuesday it was bound me to quiet- but if it hadn't been for my loyal friends turning up, there may not have been an audience. This is something that I am finding again and again- my work doesn't sit well in a conventional gallery setting. You may wonder why I've not noticed this before, but I've only ever put my work into this setting once before. Until that point it had been a small, specially invited audience who had no choice but to partake... Which leads me onto my next point. I need to make my work more theatre like, not less. By that, I don't mean I am going to have knee slaps, impromptu songs, stages or plot lines; I am not. Promise. But I need to find a setting for which my audience are invited, or are there specifically to see performance. Not within a space that is already fighting for the audiences attention, like the gallery space would.

Having seen Linder's Dark Town Cake Walk at Chisenhale, I am becoming more and more intrigued by performance that takes over the space like theatre, but maintains that 'fine art' quality. Similarly, (but annoyingly too late) I've just been enlightened to the work of You Me Bum Bum Train, in which the single audience member is whisked through a space in a wheelchair, becoming the protagonist in a number of weird and wacky scenarios (almost all of which are a secret).

So with this in mind, I think I am going to begin rethinking the setting for my work; as currently the traditional gallery space isn't working (or so far this week it isn't.) Wish me luck with the rest of ADF and I'll keep you posted. Although at this rate we'll have to think of a barmy army-esq name for my lovely loyal friends who always and without fail turn up. Thanks guys!