Ant Hampton’s work since 1999 in live performance and theatre has had a long and consistent focus guiding performers and audiences through unrehearsed situations and interactive relations. His work often involves recorded audio or other automated devices to explore the tension between fixed formal or structural elements and what has to be lived and negotiated in the moment. Around 2007 his practice developed to include the audience themselves - a strand of work that became known as Autoteatro, usually involving small-scale and intimate formats, sometimes site-specific, eg in cafes for Etiquette, or library reading-rooms for The Quiet Volume.
His performances, which continue to tour internationally in over 70 language versions, occasionally require no-one to travel; a paradoxical outcome (for an art committed to liveness and presence) which in turn informed his recent advocacy and research project, ShowingWithoutGoing.live
In more recent years his practice has expanded into a wider investigation of radical trust, risk-taking and leaps of faith, most obviously via his ‘automatic workshop’ The Thing. In 2023 he launches Time Based Editions with David Bergé, a series of ‘live books’ combining print and audio.
He has often collaborated with other artists, including Christophe Meierhans, Britt Hatzius, Gert-Jan Stam, Ivana Müller, Anna Rispoli and Edit Kaldor. Not to Scale is Ant’s third ‘Autoteatro’ collaboration with Tim Etchells.
