Staged encounters

Hosts arrange particular conditions before guests meet or act. They select company, possessions, questions, practical tasks, location, timing, available information. A guest can encounter the camera independently, contribute an observation, later receive an invitation to examine it with someone else.

The host can introduce an object before its custodian, ask for a demonstration, leave a permitted task unfinished, delay a reveal. Participants can decline, change the activity, pursue an unexpected subject. Staff record the actual offer and sequence so the institution can compare its intention with the lived event.

Scene design develops this craft through domestic occasions, improvisation, participatory art, theatre, ethnography, social inquiry, techniques of directed attention. Casting concerns the particular configuration of people and activity. Staff evaluate the proposal through participants' accounts and subsequent actions rather than a compulsory emotional or relational outcome.