Scene design

A host develops an occasion by considering participants, possessions, setting, activity, question, timing. They identify a reason for the offer and a range of possible responses, prepare practical conditions, then attend to the actual event.

For a camera session, the host might invite a visitor to demonstrate a mechanism before introducing the custodian. For a book exchange, participants can read different annotations separately, then compare them. For a meal, the host can invite cooperation around an unfamiliar vessel. The activity can end in a new question, a practical result, an unresolved disagreement.

Staff retain the offered information, refusals, changes in activity, later accounts. Techniques from participatory art, improvisation, theatre, magic, ethnography can inform directed attention and timing. Researchers still distinguish the host's interpretation from the participants' accounts. Event layers, casting, authored encounters explain these distinctions.