MANUAL

MANUAL, created in collaboration with the artist Christopher Willes, is a one-on-one performance that turns a public library into a space of sensory encounter and heightened awareness. Staged covertly during public hours, participants arrive on site with instructions to meet a stranger in a particular place. From there they are silently led through a series of subtle events, following written notes and immersive audio in headphones. They walk through the space and listen together. They look at books and read to each other. Sounds and images found in the library combine and blur. And as the piece progresses the materials they encounter come to form a manual for slowing down.  
 
Intermingling with the daily life of the library, MANUAL reflects on the act of listening and the intimacy of reading with another person in a public space. Through a carefully guided participatory experience, the piece invites viewers to engage with the library as a site of deep sensory awareness, and to reflect on the social and technological conditions of shared attention.

Presented at:

Festspillene i Nord Norge -Harstad, Norway
Bangkok International Performing Arts Meeting (BIPAM)
suddenlyLISTEN – Halifax, Canada
Fierce Festival – Birmingham
GIFT – Gateshead/Newcastle
Take Me Somewhere – Glasgow
Yokohama Performing Arts Meeting (YPAM)
PuSH Festival – Vancouver
Living Things – Kelowna
OFFTA – Montreal

Upcoming:

Kyoto Experiment
Moving in November – Helsinki
Yamaguchi Centre for Arts and Media (YCAM)
Galerie UQO (Université du Québec an Outaouais)
ANTI-Festival
Belluard Bollwerk
Farº Festival

CREDITS

Creation: Adam Kinner and Christopher Willes
Dramaturgy: Hanna Sybille Müller
Performers: Adam Kinner, Christopher Willes, Hanna Sybille
Müller, Denise Kenney, Alexa Mardon, Chao-Ying Rao (Betty)
& Rosa Postlethwaite.
Sound contributions from: Michael Davidson, Colin Fisher,
Thomas Gill, Terri Hron, Philippe Lauzier, Germaine Liu,
Philippe Melanson. Karen Ng, and Felicity Williams.
Production assistance: Camille Lacelle-Wilsey, Mulu Tesfu,
Jessica Han.
Created with the support of: Festival TransAmériques (Les
Respirations), Conseil des arts du Canada, Conseil des arts
et des lettres du Québec, the Ontario Arts Council, and LA
SERRE – arts vivants.
Creation residencies: Take Me Somewhere (UK), LA SERRE
– arts vivants (Montréal).
Photos by David Wong

PRESS

Snack Mag
Keira Brown

Learning to read, again
Emmanuelle Jetté for Respirations

Games with ghosts in the library
Jenn Stephenson for Dramaturgies of Perception

MANUAL is an immersive conversation with a public library
Annapoorna Shruthi for Vancouver Art Review