Entrevista con Ant Hampton

Abstract

Ant Hampton (b. 1975, lives and works in Germany) is a British artist, writer, and performance maker. His career began in 1998 under the name of Rotozaza, a performance-based project which ended up spanning theatre, installation, intervention and writing-based works. Since 2007, his Autoteatro series explores a new kind of performance whereby audience members perform the piece themselves, usually for each other. Most often, this projects have involved guiding people through unrehearsed performance situations. Though varied in tone and content, his work has consistently played with a tension between liveness and automation.

Regularly Hampton collaborates with diverse artists, and recently he has worked with Glen Neath, Joji Koyama, Sam Britton, Tim Etchells, Gert-Jan Stam, Britt Hatzius and Christophe Meierhans to create the works which continue to tour internationally: over 60 different language versions exist of the various Autoteatro productions created so far.

This interview explores Hampton’s production processes and modes of presentation, and analyses a project that searches for live performance options without air travel. Faced with an unfolding climate catastrophe, and building on what the cultural sector have learnt during 2020’s covid crisis, Hampton has initiated at Vidy Théâtre Lausanne the research project Showing without going. Their goal is to build a useful tool for artists and producers of live work; a catalogue of formats opening options for showing and sharing performances in far-off places without flying and without compromising on the uniqueness of the live encounter.