Work
The Confessional
Maker Living Lucid Creative · Work date 2020-06-19 · Medium telephone · Role work
Description
Our priests are standing by to hear all of your wildest confessions. With COVID-19 turning life upside down, getting out to make those regular confessions has been next to impossible, so we are bringing you service via a private phone call with one of our priests. Did you forget to wear a mask? Again? Was it not quite 6’ feet between you and the next person in the checkout line? Do your bad habits have bad habits? Do those of you in Habits find yourself with bad habits? Did you fantasize about your child’s hot young teacher on Zoom calls despite being married for years? Did your youngest find that nude picture on your phone? Have you been considering how making out via Google Hangouts would work? Has it been so long since you have been with another human than animals have started looking attractive? Have you been using all this time at home to check out what acid is like in the 21st
Source. No published description found.
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 private phone call; a handset is not headphones and none are requested.
- Participants move through space as part of the worknoI
Nothing in the listing asks the participant to change location.
- Audio technology is necessaryyesP
The whole work is “a private phone call with one of our priests.”
- Site-, situation- or language-specificnoI
No place, named circumstance or language is required; the call reaches the participant anywhere.
- Engages with the history of a sitenoI
Content is comic confession about pandemic life, with no reference to documented events of a real place.
- Created for an urban environmentnoI
A phone call presupposes a telephone, not city density or infrastructure.
- Created as an artwork other than theaternoI
Marketed as a service — “we are bringing you service via a private phone call” — with no non-theatrical discipline named.
- Intended to be understood as theaternoI
The listing is written as a confession service with no theatrical vocabulary: no performance, show, cast, audience or house.
- Accidental real-world sights and sounds are importantunknown?
The listing never addresses whether uncontrolled surroundings carry meaning.
Did you experience this? Tell us - Spectator must participateyesP
The premise requires the participant to confess: “Our priests are standing by to hear all of your wildest confessions.”
- Has live performers other than the participantsyesI
A confession call in which a priest hears and responds requires a human on the line in real time.
- Involves game playnoI
No rules, objective or resolution state are present.
- Uses props other than the listening deviceunknown?
No materials are mentioned, and unmentioned props are not evidence of absence.
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.