An ongoing series of public sittings at Veteran's Plaza in Overton Park, Memphis. Each sitting begins with a single conceptual premise — and lets what happens within it become the work.
Five hours. Anything.
The opening sitting. No subject was off-limits. No time-keeping within. No structure offered beyond the invitation itself. Attention given freely, without condition.
The premise tested a single question: what happens when a stranger is offered the kind of attention usually reserved for those one already loves?
Present, but without voice.
The second sitting removed voice while preserving presence. The eyes remained available. The body remained available. What was withheld was reply.
The premise asked: can one be present without participating? And what does the absence of response reveal about what we usually call presence?
To those who saw me before, return.
This sitting was a test of recognition. The implicit question of the second event — did anyone actually see me? — was given a place to answer itself. Those who returned silently joined in stillness.
The premise made visible the difference between being seen and being looked at.
I pay you to be here. Ten cents an hour.
A title borrowed from Barbara Ehrenreich. The premise inverted the usual direction of payment in this kind of practice — and named the amount with deliberate, almost offensive smallness.
The premise asked: when payment is the literal minimum, what becomes visible about what was being exchanged before money entered? And what does the dime — held in the hand, refused or pocketed — say back?
Ask any question. The answer will be in Chinese.
A reference to Asimov's Multivac — the giant computer that answers any question. Here the oracle is restricted to a single language. The English-speaking petitioner receives an answer they may not understand. The Chinese-speaking petitioner receives it in their own tongue.
The premise makes visible what the universal-access fantasy of contemporary AI conceals: that any oracle answers in some language, and the choice of language is itself a position.
I will pay each attendee one ton of love.
A companion to Nickel and Dimed. The previous event named the smallest payment imaginable. This one names a payment that cannot be made in any literal sense — and yet the language of payment is preserved exactly. 形式不重要，我不着形 — the form does not matter; I do not bind myself to form.
The premise references the motif of weight in Johnnie To's The Mission — how much does a thing weigh? — and asks it of love.
The series is open. More sittings will come.