Call it a Night is a research-based performative project mainly in the form of a telephone service. People who face sleep-related difficulties are encouraged to call during specific night hours on a cell phone number which I answer. After posing a few questions, I give guidelines to the participants in order for them to start feeling more comfortable, and then, proceed to narrate stories to them. The participants are in all cases unaware that the procedure is a performative piece.
The intention is to research emerging questions related to narrative (literary, spatial, political, personal) within the time-dependent procedure, in an effort to reconfigure narrative authorship but also participation in the performative process. Thus, Call it a Night is also used as a research tool for field study related to my Ph.D. thesis.
For the purposes of the project, a literary archive has been formed consisting mainly of short stories, unabridged fairy tales, folk tales, adaptations, A.I. (artificial intelligence) generated narratives, and also stories that I have recorded or composed. From the above, a script of 350 pages in English and Greek has been drafted for the purposes of the performative piece.
The project also involves promotional material for online purposes, posters, digital collages, etc., and makes thorough use of advertising strategies (e.g. slogans) to enhance its pseudo-service appearance. It also features social media accounts, a SoundCloud account, and an internet radio station, which are activated accordingly every time that the project is performed.
[November 2019 - February 2021]
Part of project’s online promotional material, 2019-2021
[project’s “business cards”, poster, digitally formed and manipulated images, digital collages]
Call it a Night, 2020, installation and participatory performance, four mattresses 1.60 x 2 m., sewn fabric duvet filled with Poly-fil 3 x 3 m., two kimonos, two sleeping masks, six pillows 70 x 100 cm., essential oils perfume, hotel telephone, Performance Rooms, St. George Lycabettus Hotel
[photographic documentation of performance participants, backstage, and sketch of installation by bmin0r (Giorgos Makris)]
This version of Call it a Night had the form of in situ installation and participatory performance. In this case, the service was presented as the hotel’s complementary sleep service. Visitors of room 108 where the installation was set, were encouraged to pick up the phone in case it rang. Upon answering, I gently instructed them to lie down comfortably on the bed and proposed to narrate either a story or a fairy tale to them. They could choose their preferred genre and also whether the content of the narration would be pleasant or unpleasant. After the narration, they had the option of remaining in bed if they wanted to. The hotel telephone line and device were used for the purposes of the performance.
Please tell me a bedtime story., 2018-2020, screenshots from requests towards Siri iOs virtual assistant
[printed on suspended poster with selection of project's promotional material, 0.84 x 1.20 m, Enchanted Environments, Worcester Art House, UK]
Call it a Night was one of the participations of the Enchanted Environments symposium and exhibition at Worcester University. There, the project was discussed in relation to the occasional presence of artificial intelligence generated texts in the performative process, the enchantment of the discursive procedure with A.I., the technological, mental and digressive, infatuating online spaces and the virtual as a shared topos. For the exhibition a printed A0 poster was suspended, with a collection of fourteen of the above screenshots and some of the project’s promotional material.
Call it a Night [video sequence I]
Call it a Night [video sequence II]
Video by bmin0r