Work
NEXT TIME
Maker Candle House · Work date 2019-12 · Medium telephone · Role work
Description
An afterlife bureaucracy. The recently dead complete a survey that determines whether they reincarnate or Move On, conducted by a caseworker whose banter is whimsical and whose paperwork is not. Sixty minutes of in-universe time. Performed by Katy Murphy as Pancake the caseworker.
Source. https://candlehouse.org
Part of Candle House's Under the Bed, a select-your-own-experience menu of remote one-to-one encounters reviewed in December 2019. Participants who booked four or more connections also received a call from the Operator, a host who framed the stories and remembered what the participant had already been through — cross-call memory, three years before the field noticed it.
Anatomy
Thirteen criteria after Lauren R. Beck. Each carries a source grade: M maker-confirmed, P published, F first-hand, I inferred by the compiler, ? not yet established. Definitions are on the anatomy page.
- Participants listen through headphonesnoI
A 45–60 minute phone call; a handset is not headphones and none are requested.
- Participants move through space as part of the worknoI
The listing gives no instruction to change location.
- Audio technology is necessaryyesP
“Performed live for a solo audience member over the course of a 45-60min phone call.”
- Site-, situation- or language-specificnoI
Available worldwide with no site, named circumstance or language requirement.
- Engages with the history of a sitenoI
Content is a fictional bureaucracy, The Bureau, not documented events of a real place.
- Created for an urban environmentnoI
A worldwide phone call presupposes a telephone, not city infrastructure.
- Created as an artwork other than theateryesI
Its presenting context includes selection by the Festival of International Virtual and Augmented Reality Stories 2021, a non-theatrical new-media storytelling context.
- Intended to be understood as theateryesP
“An interactive experience performed live for a solo audience member,” with press calling it “a bowl of warm theater.”
- Accidental real-world sights and sounds are importantunknown?
The listing says nothing about the participant’s real surroundings.
Did you experience this? Tell us - Spectator must participateyesP
The participant answers the survey — regrets, accomplishments — and makes a choice at the end. Nothing proceeds without them.
- Has live performers other than the participantsyesP
Performed live by Katy Murphy.
- Involves game playnoI
An absurdist comedy with no rules, objective or resolution state described.
- Uses props other than the listening deviceunknown?
No materials are mentioned.
Did you experience this? Tell us
2 of thirteen are still unknown for this work. If you experienced it, you can settle them in a minute.