︎
Play



 William Joys
Metronome


Stagaing 2 Performances:

31 January 2026 7:00pm
1 February 2026, 4:00pm


Link to Tickets 

The world is a stage. But the world of the stage is not your world. For what you must realise is that Hamlet was not a ‘guy like you’.
You are about to join a tradition that goes back 2000 years. Some think that the oldest profession is hoaring but without actressing hoars could never have feigned an orgasm let alone stand on a street corner.
It is a simple fact that all of us use the technique of actressing to achieve whatever ends we seek. Indeed it is an art in which one can get what one wants without having to be a total swine.

In this sense it is almost a lost art.
Metronome delves into the thick boundaries of visual art and live performance, interrogating both as a formal device and as a vehicle for political and personal liberation.
Drawing inspiration from the radical aesthetics of the 1920s Bauhaus movement, Joys explores the ironies inherent in legacies of mid-century performance art in relation to method acting. The gallery transforms into an active participant in a tightly paced, mechanical choreography, employing an intricate interplay of music, sound, light, speech, costume, sculpture and movement.

Featuring performers Lewis Prosser, Laura Schuller, and Stella Pearce, with music by Max Schuller. Running time approximately 45 minutes, please arrive promptly.

William Joys channels characters which arouse suspicion about the endorsement of authenticity over ‘artificial’ construction. He performs through layers of subterfuge, becoming an object which embodies the prop, the stage, the costume, in order to promote the art of actressing. He has exhibited and performed at Glasgow International, Strangefield, Modern Institute, David Dale Gallery, Kunsthalle Münster and Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Germany, Kunstraum, London, The Legal Stage, MIT List Centre USA, MUMOK, Vienna, Museum Ludwig Cologne. With upcoming performances at Bolding Gallery and The Claude Cahun. He is a founding member of Villa Design Group and one half of performance and publishing platform Sartre25. He is currently part of the Conditions Studio Programme, Croydon.

Graphic design: Oliver Long
Photograph: Matthew Noel-Tod

 
Exhibition Hours
Fri-Sat 12:00-18:00
Sun 12:00-16:00