For A Good Time Call SoLow Fest
Have you ever feared being the only one who shows up? To a party, a performance, a meeting? Mike Durkin wants you to be the only audience member. His latest work, For A Good Time Call, which debuts at SoLow Fest, has no time or location. June 16–24, you can call Mike at any time, you are given a task, and you meet up. “This is not a passive audience experience, this is an immersive, active and engaging experience from the moment you call in, through the physical meeting up, and the moment afterwards,” Durkin explains.
The weekend the Pope visited Philadelphia Mike Durkin was on a date with a person who proposed that Mike do a performance piece where people call him up and he answers questions, even offering that it should be called For A Good Time Call. “I responded, ‘That’s a stupid idea,’” Durkin remarks. “Needless to say the date didn’t go so well.” Months later, the idea still alive in his brain, Durkin did a workshop version of For A Good Time Call in the winter where he explored various neighborhoods in the city and sculpted “performances” in them. “I was interested in observing every inch of the neighborhood: its architecture, the people the live/work/play there, the conversations, the history, the development, the past-present-future of these locations,” says Durkin. And the title, For A Good Time Call, a play on the iconic bathroom stall graffiti soliciting sexual acts, grew on Durkin. He thought about creating intimate experiences about having a good time and exploring the city.
Durkin walks the line between art and the mundane by questioning what performance is when you have an audience of one. “Does eating some water ice in Bella Vista while coloring in a coloring book and chatting about gentrification count as performance?” he muses. What constitutes a sign of life more than interaction with another person? Durkin gives his audience members the chance to learn about another person, themselves and their communities through these guided interactions while maintaining the intimacy of a one-on-one conversation.
Mike’s phone number is 267-343-2009.
For A Good Time Call at SoLow Fest
Mike Durkin
June 16–24
—Emily Dombrovskaya
