Odyssey Works: Transformative Experiences for an Audience of One

by Abraham Burickson, Ayden LeRoux, Rick Moody (Contributor)

Odyssey Works infiltrates the life of one person at a time to create a customtailored, life-altering performance. It may last for one day or a few months and consists of experiences that blur the boundaries of life and art—is that subway mariachi band, used book of poetry, or meal with a new friend real or a part of the performance?

Central to this book is their 2013 performance for Rick Moody, author of The Ice Storm . His Odyssey lasted four months and included a fake children's book, introducing the themes of his performance, and a cello concert in a Saskatchewan prairie (which Moody almost missed after being stopped at customs with, suspiciously, no idea why he was traveling to Canada).

The book includes Moody's interviews with Odyssey Works, an original short story by Amy Hempel, and six proposals for a new theory of making art.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Design

224 pages, Paperback

Published November 8, 2016

Reviews

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Odyssey Works creates immersive performance experiences that focus on transforming the life of one person. The experiences are deeply personal and require the Odyssey Works team to do deep research, planning, and creative thinking. This book is an amazing record of their work. But it's real power is in outlining their process, their discoveries along the way, and the greater implications of considering an audience of one. It's an important read for anyone doing work that involves an audience.

[Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has completely changed the way I think about my art practice. If you’ve never heard of Odyssey Works, what they do is inspiring—they create performances for an audience of one person, with the objective to move them and transform them as much as they can. Their method is evocative, unusual, and enormously generous, and in these pages is a full and beautiful account of the how and the why of what they do.