The Dramaturgical Drone: Harry Giles @ Edfringe 2015

Drone is a spoken word and sound art performance about remote technology and anxiety. Telling the fragmented story of a military drone’s lives and fears, Drone imagines her as part weapons system, part office worker, part tense background hum. Live sound and spoken word entangle like human and machine, environment and technology, noise and sense. The bleak humour and tender fury of Drone sees the unmanned aerial vehicle as the technology of a neurotic century, surveilled and surveilling, asking how anxious bodies can live as part of systems of astonishing destruction.


“Lashed to the mast of anarchism.” Sabotage Reviews
“Obnoxious.” The Telegraph
“Vile.” The Daily Mail
“But is it art?” The Guardian
“I’ve never heard of him.” Blog commenter
The Fringe1. What inspired this production: did you begin with an idea or a script or an object?
Harry Giles: Three years ago I read the New Inquiry's magazine "Game of Drones", which analysed our in coming drone culture, while I was depressed, lonely and anxious. Instead of writing a poem about myself, I wrote a poem about a military drone who was having all the feelings I was feeling. Then I couldn't stop writing about her.

Why bring your work to Edinburgh?

Good question. The easy answer is that I was given an opportunity to perform it that I could believe in: a venue with a good platform at a good time, that meant I was likely to get a decent audience, and through SHIFT/ a collaborative approach that shared the risk. My default stance is "You don't need to do the Fringe", but if you can find a less risky way to tap into that audience, the sirens call.


What can the audience expect to see and feel - or even think - of your production?
I've written this show to make people cry, and feel scared and a bit twisted up. I want them to see humans as complicated machine-like vehicles of alienation and terror, and drones as the defining technology of our anxious age. I want them to be exhilarated by the flow of sound and words, to be caught up in my verse and my sparkly dress and my collaborator's virtuosic music. I want them to leave shaking.



The Dramaturgy Questions

How would you explain the relevance - or otherwise - of dramaturgy within your work?
I trained as a director rather than as an actor, so when I make theatre I'm thinking in that spatial, temporal, dramaturgical way: I'm arranging the text and the stage and the audience to communicate a politics, a dialectic, to work with or undermine a set of assumptions, before I'm attempting to inhabit the words as a performer.

What particular traditions and influences would you acknowledge on your work - have any particular artists, or genres inspired you and do you see yourself within their tradition?
Most of my work is interactive in some way: I site myself in a tradition of political theatre that comes from Brecht through Boal and the Living Theatre and the Bread & Puppet Theatre to whatever arts-activist moment we're in now. 

This show is actually very, very different: there's no audience interaction, it happens in an end-on space, with a constant flow of sound and words. It's more like a gig than a performance, in the end, though its more conscious and controlled in its scenography than a gig might be. But despite that, I can still feel that it's come from a tradition of political theatre; I'm just exploring some different dramaturgical models this time.


Do you have a particular process of making that you could describe - where it begins, how you develop it, and whether there is any collaboration in the process?
This show was actually a book before it was a performance: I had a complete text, and then had to work out if it was supposed to be a show. I usually make work alone; this time I decided I wanted to collaborate equally with a musician (Neil Simpson) to make the performance. Making the show was like jamming with a band: we worked in Neil's bedroom studio, trying out sounds and shapes, playing and replaying the show until it felt ready. Then we did a scratch performance at Buzzcut to see if it worked -- and it did!


What do you feel the role of the audience is, in terms of making the meaning of your work?
Usually, in my work, I make the audience the central performers, the central meaning-makers of the show: the meaning happens in what they actually say on stage, or how they act within the games I've devised. (That's a lie: of course the tasks I set and the games I play communicate an ideology in their structure as well.) 

This time, the audience are eyes and ears: they're listening to and watching a stream of ideas, and then have to figure out what to make of it all. Sometimes this show feels like the most violent thing I've done to an audience, because I'm assaulting them with a non-stop stream of painful ideas and twisty sounds; sometimes, this show feels like the most gentle I've been with an audience, because I'm giving them space to think how they want to think, rather than playing with them and manipulating them with my strange rules and rituals.

Harry Giles (words) is a writer and performer based in Edinburgh. He founded Inky Fingers Spoken Word and co-directs the performance platform ANATOMY. His pamphlets Visa Wedding (2012) and Oam (2013) are published by Stewed Rhubarb; he was the 2009 BBC Scotland slam champion; and in 2014 was one of six shortlisted for the UK’s biggest poetry prize, the Edwin Morgan Award. His participatory theatre has toured festivals across Europe, including Forest Fringe (UK), NTI (Latvia) and CrisisArt (Italy). His performance What We Owe was picked by the Guardian’s best-of-the-Fringe 2013 roundup – in the “But Is It Art?” category.

Neil Simpson (music) has a very varied practice, deliberately difficult to summarise. It currently includes an interest in embodiment and performativity. In particular, he is interested in the extent to which bodies and objects are humanised, and dehumanised, through performance. Previously, his work has involved music, audience-based and site-specific performances, in addition to sound art installations, film soundtracks, documentary film-making, writing, poetry, and visual art. He has performed across the UK over the last ten years or so, on his own and as part of a duo called Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Harry Giles: thoughts on Human Rights

This is the second part of Harry Giles' response to my questions about Human Rights and the Arts... 

But all this is me talking in very abstract theoretical terms. In actuality, the UDHR is a set of ideas that I can mostly (if not entirely) get behind, and the European Court of Human Rights is something that mostly (if not entirely) seems to be a tool we can use in struggles against oppression. So while I might have some intellectual qualms with it all, and while I might want to explore those, I'm also more worried about other things!

One of the things I'm worried about, like you, is the Tory attack on the discourse of human rights. It's partly the dystopian vision of the future, in which British rejection of the ECHR enables greater and greater restriction on civil liberties and greater and greater oppression of marginalised groups. 

But it's also how much the attack on the ECHR is used as a stalking horse for a bunch of other issues. When rightist parties attack "Europe", more often than not what they're acting on is really a fear of immigrants: xenophobia. In Dave's Declaration, the two targets (prisoners, terrorists) are stalking horses for immigrants. All three groups are people we can conveniently blame society's ills on and use as fear figures to increase neoliberal power.

(And as an aside, Dave's three examples are all also horrible in and of themselves. YES, I want it to be impossible to deport "suspected" terrorists. (Because who defines "suspected"? On what grounds? What about innocent til proven &c?) YES, I want the Geneva convention to apply to the battlefields of Helmand, just as it applied to even the fucking Nazis. And YES, I want prisoners to have the vote. Why the fuck should they not have the vote? Why should we take that right away, if we believe in it as a right? But then I also believe in abolishing prison, so.)

So yes, you're certainly right, I think, in your understanding. A "British bill of rights" is a horrible idea, because it defines "British" as some meaningful category of people who deserve more and better than other people. It restricts political organisation to a stupid border, rather than opening up actually meaningful classes of oppression like gender, or economic class, or dis/ability. "Nation" is a horrible way to organise a people, and one that truly relies on meaningless divisions between humans, rather than the actual power dynamics of how we relate to each other. There is no liberation for anyone in "nation", only small-mindedness, xenophobia and oppression.


You'll note something that feels like a contradiction in what I'm saying. On the one hand, I'm calling for attention to localities while on the other hand I'm calling for organisation beyond national borders. That's the sort of contradiction that bringing up "human rights" causes for me, and I think it's a productive contradiction. For me, universality is more about paying attention to everyone's specificities than it is about creating set codes and institutions for everyone. How to go about doing that, in practice and against power, is another question.

Hope this "helps".

 I would add a reply, but I think Harry articulates my position exactly on the difference between 'British' and 'Human' rights. And I have exactly the same qualms about the nation as an appropriate unit for political measures.

Cool: I got a reply from Harry Giles...

About a week or so ago, I posted a plea for help to Harry Giles. I was a bit confused about human rights. He replied...

Hi Gareth,

Thanks for writing to me! I think we can have some fun conversations. It made me laugh that this is what we began with, but maybe it's a nice way for me to say hi to your blog readership. Hi, blog readership.

First off, I'm totally happy to chew over ideas with you (or just about anyone), but I'm going to resolutely resist the rubric of "help" or anything that might cast me as experty. I blether about politics in the abstract and the specific a lot, but that doesn't make me an expert in any way. (I tend to be a lot better at theory than history, for a start). I tend to think everyone is the expert of the politics of their own lives. Also, because on Twitter I tend to be strident and angry and declamatory, people assume that I have loads of determined and considered views. The internet for me is mostly a space of thinking-things-through (like the theatre!), and in person I tend to be a lot more awkward and uncertain about things.

So, human rights? Hmm. My immediate reaction, with my anarchist hat on, is to be as sceptical of supra-national (neo)liberal institutions like the UN as I am of national institutions. They're an embodiment of the idea that if we create a state apparatus big enough, with enough hierarchical layers of representative democracy, then eventually we'll be able to sort everything out. Like in Star Trek, where there's a pan-Earth government that makes everything absolutely lovely for everyone, and all the conflict goes up to the interplanetary layer. Deep Space 9 is absolutely brill, because we finally properly see what happens when a massive liberal interstellar government (the Federation) comes into conflict with a local anti-Imperial resistance movement (the Bejorans) who are critical of Federation politics as erasing of their locality. 

Anyway. So. I really like all the *ideas* in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but I want to examine to what use they're put: in practice, what structures of power do they help maintain? How are they used as a tool to maintain that power? And who do they leave out?

On that last question: I also tend to be sceptical of human universals. Whenever there's a universal declaration of something, I assume that some specificity, some locality somewhere is being ignored, erased and oppressed. In this case, for example, it's notable that the UDHR has since been supplemented with the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Back at Harry...

Hi Harry,

Nietzsche funnies no 3 

I feel kinda bad, because I have split your reply into two parts: I am trying to get a million posts on my blog, and there was plenty in the first half for me to consider... but I get the feeling that our conversations, at first, will high-light many of our shared positions. I love the word 'suspicious,' since I generally feel it whenever anyone with any power tells me something is for my own good. I am trying to pull this back into a healthy scepticism rather than a sulky teenager shouting at his dad.

I think we agree, in theory - the next bit of your reply was more practical - that Human Rights sound like a good set of ideas, but their use needs to be carefully considered. I always feel at this point the need to point out that I am not rejecting Human Rights as a Good Thing. I'm not The Daily Mail. 

There is always some big organisation suggesting that they know what is best: I think it's an ironic possibility that the same distrust of authority that I have has driven some people to vote for UKIP. I'm pretty desperate to find some good in that party's appearance and popularity, and I'll go with this... the protest vote is a healthy vote, and UKIP are in the process of turning themselves into a hilarious parody of a right wing party. I don't think it will be too long before their supporters realise that they share more with The Green Party, and stop finding the sight of that Edinburgh MEP shouting about gravy trains hilarious.

I am also with you on the matter of universals: although that is one place where my critical thoughts have a political application. A few years ago, I ran a magazine that was all about the dance, and the phrase 'dance is a universal language' turned up a few times. I was actually seeing enough dance to realise that the grammar of, say, Jack Webb's choreography, was not the same as Dance Ihayami's Indian tradition. I wrote a big article claiming that universals were bullshit. I might have been in my post-modernist phase then.

But, like you say, the universal denies the particular. We might get onto my dislike for 'issue theatre' (that might be more a taste thing than anything else), but I don't like the kind of criticism that claims that a particular text expresses a permanent value. If there are universals - and Plato turns out not to be joking about the World of Forms - I reckon they'll be so obvious (no murder et c) that I really don't need a play to remind me about them. 

But when I start shouting 'no meta-narratives in the post-modern age' like I did in that Religious Education class I was teaching. I'm not just attempting to be a hipster. I think that the post-modern suspicion is based on how many times those meta-narratives have been used to justify authoritarian antics.

Umm, so yes. I agree with you, only I never caught up with Deep Space 9.

Hey Harry Help!

Hey Harry,

I did want to start this conversation slowly: a few general questions about anarchism as a ideology within theatre, the role of performance within activism. You know, abstract stuff that opens up a chat, finds common ground, gives us a framework. Terms of reference, shared assumptions, that kind of thing.

Only, as always, events have caught up with me. I am not the biggest fan of the Conservative party, but I nearly soiled myself when I read David Cameron's thoughts on human rights today. Let's recap his words...

Of course, it’s not just the European Union that needs sorting out – it’s the European Court of Human Rights.
When that charter was written, in the aftermath of the Second World War, it set out the basic rights we should respect.
But since then, interpretations of that charter have led to a whole lot of things that are frankly wrong.
Rulings to stop us deporting suspected terrorists.
The suggestion that you've got to apply the human rights convention even on the battle-fields of Helmand.
And now – they want to give prisoners the vote.
I’m sorry, I just don't agree.

Let's pause there for a moment. Apart from the rather odd tricolon here - he starts with the most frightening thing (terrorists!), and ends on a bathetic note (prisoners getting the vote), I can't quite get my head around Cameron's process here. He seems to be saying the charter of the European Court of Human Rights 'we should respect.' then goes on to say the interpretation are 'frankly wrong.'

I'm sorry, Dave, I just don't agree. If we accept the basic foundation, don't we have to accept its working out through its application? 

I am actually pretty frightened by the thought that Britain might drop our human rights. It's not just the company we'd be keeping (Belarus, Greece during its junta period): it's the idea that a 'British bill of rights' would somehow replace the universal quality of 'human rights.'

So - I am wondering where you'd stand on human rights? I think that they are a fiction, something we made up, but that they represent an ideal - a Platonic Form of social justice that defines us as individual beings of worth - that governments can work towards. They can never be reached, but each attempt makes the world a little better. And a British bill of rights suggests that rights are not universal, but belong to a nation and its citizens. 

And so, other nations, other citizens, can't share those rights. 

I rather hope I am over-reacting. How do you understand this?

The Glasgow School: The artists reply iii: Harry Giles (part1)

Harry Giles is all right by me. He is one of the master-minds behind the Anatomy nights at Summerhall-  a post-modern spin on old school vaudeville variety. He has presented some small scale, intimate works, including one on debt at The Arches. 

While he is based in Edinburgh, he has been part of enough Glasgow-based festivals that he is a stake-holder in the West Coast scenes - and I am sure, as a positive anti-capitalist, he'll be delighted that I am using such a business orientated description.

'I'm not by any technical definition a Glasgow artist. I trained in London and I live and work in Edinburgh. I came from theatre and performance poetry, rather than live art or contemporary performance (CPP). But with each year that goes by I become further away from theatre and poetry and closer to being a performance artist, and I think that's largely due to the aesthetic gravitational pull of Glasgow.'

I think Harry has demonstrated why I wanted his opinions: he has noted that Glasgow is known for a certain sort of work ('performance art') and recognises that it influences beyond the geographical boundaries. 

'I think of Glasgow as the UK centre of what I do. Not London, and certainly not Edinburgh, but Glasgow. For at least two years I've talked about moving through, but I haven't done it yet; if I go to another city, though, that's where I'll go. When I think about moving through to Glasgow, I think that I'll make more friends making similar work to me, get to see more work I'm interested in, and be closer to funding and other forms of support.'

This makes sense to me: having seen Harry, mostly as the MC at Anatomy, I can spot elements of the kind of performance art that is familiar from, say, The Arches Live festival. That is not to say he doesn't have his own identity as an MC. He does a nice balancing act between the sinister and the welcoming (the former more playful, the latter more... I was going to say sincere. Too much of a loaded term...)

'When I was training in London, I saw Nic Green's Trilogy at the BAC. It was the first performance work I saw which I felt changed everything for me -- before then my influences were books and texts and photographs. I saw in Nic's performance the ability to present oneself directly on the stage, in a way that seemed honest and connected the audience directly to the subject through the performer. I saw a way to combine politics and abstract aesthetics that I wanted to be part of. I saw a fragmented, non-narrative approach to work that made sense to me.'

Harry says a great deal more, but this is enough for one blog (he deserves two or three more, so keep reading). I know what he means about Nic Green's Trilogy. It has often been identified as a precursor to the rise of feminism theatre on the alternative circuit (making that claim would involve me either be Matt Truemann or actually knowing how present feminist work was before Trilogy). I do think it announced a certain style to the world, that political and aesthetic combination that defines somebutnotall Glasgow performance. 

Glasgow School: The artists reply ii: Harry Giles

Harry Giles replied to my last facebook post with a great question. He's an artist based in Edinburgh and frequently asks about politics in a way that warms my little anarchist soul. By getting involved in my survey, he has demonstrated  - for me at least - that my idea of making this process 'open source' was pretty smart, even if it risks annoying people by slamming my words onto their timeline. 

Harry said:


I'm not based in Glasgow, and didn't train there! But it is an influence on me. Do you want me to speak as a Scottish artist who's influenced by and often works in Glasgow?

This is an easy one to answer. Totally: that would be great. Since I usually bump into you at the Forest Cafe or cycling along the Royal Mile (or more excitingly, outside a booth labelled Peep Show  during Fringe 2013), I ought to have known this. But I want you in on this - you'll get labelled as an outside eye, I guess, which makes you like a dramaturg on my work. 

I think one question I'd have is whether there's a specifically Glasgow school, or whether it's more broadly a Scottish school. 

And this is a good point. The reason I am sticking to Glasgow is because it is almost manageable as a unit for discussion. I follow the school of thought that 'the text' is 'what the analyst is observing' and the only real job I have is to draw up some parameters. 

But you are asking whether any conclusions I might draw might express a Scottish identity as much as a specific west coast one. It might well do - and I hope this might provide a foundation for that sort of research.

Also, drawing connections and comparisons between Buzzcut in the west and Anatomy in the east could be pretty exciting, especially as we started at almost the same time.

It really is. I promise I shall get around to this, once this job is out of the way. Actually, Harry: that is a more interesting question than mine, because it is more clearly delineated and can cross several disciplines (economics, context, audience response, marketing (which we both love as protestin' types)) and lead to a more focussed survey. 

You ought to be doing a post-graduate dissertation, not me. 

Harry G (full)

Show Name: What We Owe
Artist: Harry Giles
Venue: Arches LIVE 2012
Date: Tue 25 - Wed 26 Sep 2012 | Slots from 6pm-9pm (15 mins) | £5

Description (from Arches website): What We Owe is a highly unqualified debt counselling service. In a one-on-one session, Harry will take you through a discussion of what you owe – not just financially, but emotionally, socially and ecologically. Together, you’ll create a personalised Debt Action Plan which will leave you happier – or, at least with a colour-coded spreadsheet.

In an economy driven by huge financial debts, What We Owe is a tragicomic glance at what we mean by debt, and how we struggle to even begin to deal with it.

How does What We Owe fit in with Arches Live!'s overall aesthetic?

Arches LIVE is such a diverse bunch of stuff that this is a tricky one to answer. Perhaps the main thing is that What We Owe is intent on being totally serious and deadly playful at the same time. That's an aesthetic we're seeing a lot in performance now - something beyond the arch and ironic, something that allows for earnestness by being fun.

Another big thing is that, if the Arches is doing its job properly (which I think it is), then it has to reflect how politicised performance is right now. Especially performance coming from young and emergent artists. There's a lot of anger in the arts at the moment, and that's coming out in the form and content of our work. 

Most of my performance is big-P Political - I tend to chew into a big issue (like "class" or "riots") and then confront it frankly, try and talk about it honestly, try and make it fun for any punter to engage with. That's what What We Owe does with the subject of debt. And it's really nice to see it sitting in a programme of politically-engaged performance.

Lastly, I imagine most of the participants in Arches LIVE are struggling to pay of loans of one kind or another, so it's pretty inevitable that at least one of us makes art out of it.

What keeps you making theatre and how does this piece express that?

Look, really, I keep making theatre because the alternative is death. I don't think there's any other honest answer from most theatre-makers. The rest is just post-hoc justification. When I started making my own theatre, I rapidly realised that nothing else made me feel as satisfied, and that I wasn't better built for any other activity. You make theatre because you have to. If you didn't have to, you'd do something more obviously worthwhile.

I do have post-hoc justifications, though. I'm an angry and a political person, and I think we ought to be having some kind of revolution right now already. I hate how alienated so many people are from politics (and Politics), and how disempowered folk can be, how impossible political action seems  to so many people. So most of what I do in the theatre space is in some way about engaging people with political stuff, and about empowering people to take action. 

My last project, Class Act, ended with the option to make a pledge to participate in class war; before that, in This is not a riot, I was training people to cope with riot situation through teddy bear roleplay. I deal with the anxiety that art is waste of time (even though the choice for me is art or death) by making sure that my artistic work has non-artistic implications, has some effect in the world for those who aren't obsessed with art all the time.

Politics with a big P. I am pretty ignorant about politics... no, that isn't true. I actually distrust all ideology with a cynical distaste. Ideas like "class war" make me concerned that some bastard in a party is sending out ideas without taking responsibility for the consequences... although I know that this is not you! Short questions: can big P politics avoid getting caught up in party politics and/or dogma?

I'll never be involved in party politics. I have no belief in representative democacy, basically. I'm a sort of anarchist, and the hopeless idealism of anarchist politics is probably one reason I've ended up doing it through art. 

As for dogma, well, that depends on your politics: old school leftists thought that a dominant a agreed political platform was necessary for revolution to happen, hence all that factionalism; autonomists and anarchists and allsorts tend to be more interested in pluralities of ideas. Contemporary activism is all abou finding ways to welcome diversity - hence all that infuriating coverage of Occupy's "inability" to have a "single set of demands". It's all about finding ways to do politics differently.

How far do we have to go to enact political change?

Very, very far. It will very rarely be pretty. I liked what you said bout "responsibility", though: activists have to take responsibility for their ideas the same way artists have to take responsibility for their audiences.

In response to your thoughts on the use of theatre, I'd argue that political action is all bluster and bullshit, a bunch of people showing off, whereas a play that takes politics seriously is far more effective at engaging with the issues in a meaningful way, and works towards consciousness raising - a far more important process. 

You sound like The Daily Mail! That's not an attack, but when people say cynical things it's worth reminding them what they sound like. Activism can seem self-inflating the same way art can seem pretentious -- and some art is, and some activism is. But there are a lot of earnest people really trying to make it work, in both.

Of course, at the end of the play, the audience is still responsible for its action, and maybe direct political action is then necessary, but at least art encourages a more positive response than say...

Next week, I'll have a different opinion, no doubt... but here's an example, I think. LGBTQ rights have come about far more because of the various creative responses to oppression than because of the odd demo... the arts can define the culture and thus influences values... it might be less satisfying than jumping up and down and shouting, but watching political theatre can be far more effective... 

Well, there are whole books on the theory of social change, and I'm sure some of them argue that demos are relatively ineffective. But come on: Stonewall, early Pride, Emma Goldman's arrest for distributing contraception, Section 28 protests... you don't think these matter? You don't think they're more than the "odd demo"? Protest is constant, consistent -- there are always people engaged in struggle.

There's this concept in contemporary activism called "diversity of tactics". It means that you need lots of people doing lots of different things to achieve change: plays, protests, riots, books, maybe even parliamentary action. And that, rather than spending time condemning this or that tactic, we recognise that we need to fight on every possible front to get what we're after. It's not about finding some spurious calculus of what particular action will be most effective at any given moment: it's about supporting people to act in the ways that they can when they can, whether activism or acting.

Harry Giles: What We Owe

Politics distresses me, especially since I know that I can't get away with blandly stating "all theatre is political" when there is supposed to be a boycott on Israeli art. I am going to try and stabilise my political opinions over the next year. Best way forward: ask the artist.

It's lucky that Harry Giles is so unapologetic about his work. "I'm an angry and a political person, and I think we ought to be having some kind of revolution right now already," he says. "I hate how alienated so many people are from politics, and how dis-empowered folk can be, how impossible political action seems to so many people."

What We Owe is part of Arches Live! No doubt inspired by Mr Criticulous' retreat into a dark room last year, Giles is offering a one-to-one debt counselling session. "What We Owe is intent on being totally serious and deadly playful at the same time," he continues.  "That's an aesthetic we're seeing a lot in performance now - something beyond the arch and ironic, something that allows for earnestness by being fun."

Giles observes that Arches Live! - a bastion for new and experimental work - is increasingly reflecting the politicised performance that has become more common. Theatre is either reflecting or leading public activity here: everything from having a riot, through standing outside theatres and shouting, picketing abortion clinics to joining a Facebook group is seen as political. 

"There's a lot of anger in the arts at the moment," Giles observes. "And that's coming out in the form and content of our work. Most of my performance is big-P Political -- I tend to chew into a big issue (like "class" or "riots") and then confront it frankly, try and talk about it honestly, try and make it fun for any punter to engage with. That's what What We Owe does with the subject of debt. And it's really nice to see it sitting in a programme of politically-engaged performance."

What We Owe doesn't just fit in with Arches Live! It continues themes from his earlier works. "Most of what I do in the theatre space is in some way about engaging people with political stuff, and about empowering people to take action," he says. "My last project, Class Act, ended with the option to make a pledge to participate in class war; before that, in This is not a Riot, I was training people to cope with riot situation through teddy bear role-play."

Like me, Giles is aware that theatre might not be the only way to experience life: unlike me, he is able to put his work into a broader context. "I deal with the anxiety that art is waste of time by making sure that my artistic work has non-artistic implications, has some effect in the world for those who aren't obsessed with art all the time," he concludes. In his short slots in The Arches, Giles is making the link between the aesthetic experience and the wider world.

Harry Giles: What We Owe as part of Arches LIVE 2012

Tue 25 - Wed 26 Sep 2012