Metaform

In Metaform participants use wooden blocks and instruction cards to think and talk about big ideas in simple, physical ways. It’s a mix of choreography and sculpture. It’s a collective reading. It’s a game with no winners or losers.

Number of participants: 2-7 (it works best with 6 or 7 people).  

Duration: 20 minutes.

Wellcome Collection/ Steven Pocock

Wellcome Collection/ Steven Pocock

Metaform is a collaborative activity for two or more people playing together in one group. Cards are used to select an abstract word (for example ‘future’ or ‘thought’) that the group must arrange some or all of the objects in response to. The cards also determine how the group works together (for example ‘work in silence’ or ‘think of it as a dance’). The rules are deliberately open so that players work together to deal with any uncertainty.  

I absolutely loved Metaform - its physicality is really inviting and satisfying, the performer brings such a perfect seriousness to the absurd process, and the carefully chosen instructions combine in unexpected ways to prompt sometimes surprising conversations.

Holly Gramazio

An important part of the activity is the selection of a method for working together and then for reflection. Although the game is very open, these methods avoid anyone taking a constant lead and create room for different voices and different kinds of contribution. This is useful for any group dynamic which may have it’s own established dynamics and hierarchies. The game is not competitive but is about collaboration and awareness of each other’s thinking, creating opportunities to literally see how people think.

Kala Heatherson

Kala Heatherson

Metaform is a work by Hamish MacPherson, a London-based artist who uses ideas and methods from choreography and dance to think about politics. He makes workshops, games, performances, writings, images and other things in artistic, academic and community contexts. His other games include Breastbeating, a card game simulating an after work session in the pub where the only thing you have to do is complain; and Living Spaces / Dead Spaces, made with Michael Such, winner of the 2016 Golden Cobra Award for Best Somatic Elements.

Kala Heatherson

Kala Heatherson

Get in touch if you would like to commission Metaform for your event. Metaform readings can be conducted for friends and family; used by groups to get to know each other; as a creative warm up; as a devising tool; as an art installation; an educational tool; or as an alternative method of academic discourse, for example at a symposium.