“This slideshow is here so we both know what to do” was a performance presented at Akademie Schloss Solitude in February 2013. The slideshow (and the speech given by the artist in response to the slideshow) served as a series of cues that triggered various actions by the audience as read from index cards. Actions included: if you hear the word “performance,” please stand up; take photographs; if you see more than three people standing, applaud; and other simple tasks. Four audience members were also cued at various points to read from provided texts: Adrian Piper’s essay in Claire Bishop’s Participation, Lucy Lippard’s The Lure of the Local, Peter Brook’s The Empty Space, and Augusto Boal’s Games for Actors and Non-Actors. This process of reading cued by images and/or actions was a first foray into live footnoting.

“This slideshow is here” was created to question the format of the artist’s talk, which generally encourages passive engagement by an audience sitting in the dark. My work is best experienced as it is lived, including in presentation format. Bringing the audience to the light (and “to the stage”) allowed all listeners to have the experience of being part of a piece as well as learning about one.

Audience participants included (but were not limited to) Danielle Adair, Manuel Boutet, Sivan Cohen-Elias, Joshua Edwards, Thiago Granato, Peter Jakober, Mitch McEwen, Charlotte Moth, Marlene Perronet, Shirin Sabahi, Juna Suleiman and Lynn Xu. All participants in the talk were known to me previously, which allowed me to facilitate certain types of responsive situations based on an understanding of the social quirks of the individuals and the larger dynamic of the group.

“This slideshow is here so we both know what to do” is part of a larger series entitled “Text Performances,” which plays with the notions of reading, scoring, translation and interpretation. “Text Performances” began in late 2012 and continues through the present.