“… French & Mottershead are intelligent artists whose awareness of the innovative and irreverent possibilities provided by social and artistic conventions is matched by their sense of humour”
Robert Ayers
The Enarelay offered all attending the annual NRLA, a sequence of unique microperformance events within the social rituals of a Saturday night at The Arches.
Drawing on queue theory, concepts of audience, the liveness of the NRLA, and on-site research and micro-classes, The Enarelay put the audience in the position of creator, performer and documentor.
By presenting ticket-holders with a choice of a new rubber-stamped identity – WORK or PLAY, opposites coexisting in the communal experience of the NRLA – the entire audience gradually became participants implicated in their chosen factions.
As participants queued for Jerome Bel, Vlasta Delimar, Michèle Murray and Ben Neill / Bill Jones, or socialised in the Middle Bar, or even visited the Toilets, they were presented with WORK and PLAY lucky dips, from which they drew instructions suggesting actions specially written for their chosen identity for each particular event.
Documentation also relied on audience participation. With an invitation to ‘stick this piece of paper on the wall’ once their task was done, participants collectively created an installation that traced an alternative social network.
