One-Meter Chain Reaction at Z-art, Manchester
https://www.z-arts.org/events/haphazard-2026/
https://wordofwarning.org/current/2026-haphazard/
Z-ART, Manchester｜Haphazard 2026｜11 July 2026
One-Meter Chain Reaction is a participatory bodily practice exploring distance, imitation, and response. By maintaining a distance of approximately one metre, participants observe and follow another person’s movements, which are continuously transmitted, shifted, and re-generated between bodies.
In previous versions, we would usually begin with a short briefing, introducing the basic rules of the game before inviting participants into the chain. Participants knew that they were taking part in an activity, and understood when they were becoming part of the chain.
However, in this version at Z-ART, Manchester, on 11 July 2026, we removed this stage.
This time, we did not explain the rules in advance, nor did we explicitly invite people to join. Instead, we entered the space, began observing, and followed movements that were already taking place.
This small change shifted the relational structure of the work.
Rather than waiting for participants to enter our chain, we entered into actions that were already happening around us.
Starting from Everyday Actions
Z-ART attracted many visitors to Haphazard 2026, including families. For safety reasons, we worked mainly indoors, and the available space was relatively limited. However, the three-hour duration gave us time to slow down and continuously discover new relationships within the space.
One moment that stayed with me was a child holding a paper aeroplane.
At first, he was showing his paper aeroplane to his father, and I began copying his movements from nearby.
When he realised that we were following him, something changed.
He began running through the circular walkway with the paper aeroplane in his hand.
We followed him and ran alongside him.
He was laughing as he ran, and we were laughing too. What had begun as a simple everyday gesture gradually developed into a shared act of running because it was responded to by another body.
The joy of that moment felt immediate, and somehow contagious.
We did not tell him how to participate, nor did we invite him to become a performer. We simply began following him. Once he realised that his movements were being seen, he began to develop them further.
An action that had begun as part of everyday life slowly became part of the performance.
This is one of the things that interested me most about this version of the work: when someone realises that they are being followed, their behaviour often begins to change.
They may do more, begin to develop actions, or test how the followers will respond.
The role of the leader, then, is not predetermined. It gradually emerges through the act of following.
Who Is the Leader?
This also made me reconsider the relationship between leader and follower in One-Meter Chain Reaction.
If we follow a child running through the space, that child becomes the leader.
If we sit opposite someone reading a newspaper and follow her movements with an imaginary newspaper, she becomes the leader.
We might also enter a café and join a table where people are already sitting, drinking coffee and talking. By beginning to follow their movements, something that originally belongs to their everyday activity may gradually become part of our chain.
This relationship does not need to be confirmed through language.
Often, the other person does not initially know why we are doing what we are doing.
But once they begin to realise that they are being followed, they gain a new sense of agency.
They begin to change their movements.
We respond to those changes.
The previously clear distinction between leader and follower therefore becomes fluid:
Observation → Imitation → Recognition → Response → Change → Imitation again.
Within this cycle, the follower also changes the leader.
Finding Another Line Within the Architecture
The three-hour duration also gave us enough freedom for the body to move beyond the direct relationship of imitation between people.
We began to engage with the architecture of Z-ART, its furniture, and other works in the space.
We crawled and rolled across the floor, lay across tables, moved through gaps between pieces of furniture, and interacted with the stairs, pipes, and installations within the building.
At times, it felt as though we were altering the ways in which these objects were normally used.
A table was no longer simply a table, and a staircase was no longer simply a structure connecting different levels.
We created temporary rules for our bodies.
For example, I imagined an invisible line running through the space—from the entrance to a table, then to a chair and another round table. I required my body to remain in contact with these objects, using my body to bridge the gaps between them.
This was not a pre-designed choreography, but a temporary rule generated through the action itself.
The body had to adapt to the distance between pieces of furniture, the structure of the building, and the positions of other people in the space.
In this sense, we were altering the ways in which the space was being used, while our bodies were also continually being shaped by the space.
The space was not simply a backdrop.
It became part of the generation of movement.
The Following Body
In another moment, one of the artists led us through a series of relatively static physical exercises, including movements influenced by yoga and meditation.
The sequence continued for quite a long time.
As followers, we did not know when it would end. We could only continue observing the leader’s body and maintaining our own position.
As time passed, the body began to tire.
I watched her from the corner of my eye, trying to read the smallest changes in her body to determine whether she was about to change the movement.
When would she stop?
What would the next movement be?
How much longer could I hold it?
These questions were never spoken, but they remained present throughout the act of following.
As a movement continued longer than expected, my attention began to shift. Part of it remained focused on the leader, while another part turned towards my own body. The tension in my arms, the weight of my body, and changes in my breathing gradually became part of the act of following.
At that moment, I realised that following is not simply a matter of repeating another person’s movement. It is an ongoing process of observation and adjustment—allowing one’s body to temporarily remain within another person’s rhythm without knowing what will happen next.
At the same time, we discovered that the same movement does not produce the same bodily experience.
At one point, I lay beneath the stairs, allowing different parts of my body to follow the structure of the steps before slowly sliding downwards. For me, the movement felt surprisingly comfortable, almost like a massage. The other artists, however, did not experience it in the same way.
We can imitate the same movement, but we cannot inhabit the same body.
Imitation is therefore never simply replication.
It always passes through the body, producing a deviation within it.
Sound Transmission
Sound was another recurring thread throughout the practice.
There was a pipe connecting different levels of the building, designed by another group of artists. We once made sounds into the pipe, listening to how the sound entered the architecture and travelled between different spaces. Sound therefore became not only something we produced, but also a way of sensing the structure of the building.
Later, we came to a rectangular table. At the time, a group of people were sitting there, drinking coffee and talking, engaged in their everyday activities.
I sat beside them, placed both hands on the tabletop, and began deliberately varying the force and rhythm of my tapping. The two followers behind me joined in.
They quickly noticed what we were doing and began to imitate us. As the action continued, their attention became increasingly focused on my hands. They seemed to be observing the rhythm while anticipating what might happen next.
But I did not maintain an easily recognisable pattern. Tapping the table, clapping my hands, pausing, and changing the intervals between movements became part of the sequence. When I sensed that they had begun to anticipate a particular movement, I would change the rhythm.
Following gradually became a continuous process of observation and response.
I was watching to see whether they would follow, while they were watching for my next movement. The action was not simply transmitted from one person to another; it changed through constant judgement, deviation, and adjustment.
At the same time, the tabletop itself became part of the process. Each tap produced not only a sound but also a vibration that could be felt through the palm. Sound and touch occurred within the same action, allowing us to perceive one another not only visually, but also through bodily feedback.
The table was no longer simply a piece of furniture.
It became a shared surface of attention.
For a brief period, an ordinary scene in the café was reorganised: several people gathered around the same table, responding to one another through rhythm, movement, and bodily feedback, without the need for language.
Rules Generated Through Action
Looking back at this version of One-Meter Chain Reaction at Z-ART, I realise that removing the briefing changed not only how people participated, but also how the chain itself could form.
A person who was simply engaged in an everyday activity could become a leader through being followed. Once they realised that someone was following them, their behaviour could change.
At the same time, the chain did not only grow forwards. People could observe what we were doing from behind, recognise the relationship, and join the chain themselves. Others might follow for a while and then leave. The chain could therefore extend, contract, and reorganise itself.
Participation did not need to be explicitly assigned. The positions of leader and follower, as well as the boundaries of the chain itself, remained in constant movement. The rules were no longer a framework established in advance, but something gradually generated through bodies, space, and mutual response.
This time, the chain did not begin with us, nor did we determine where it would end.
— Scrapheap Collective/DongDong
19/08/2026
19/08/2026
Project Initiator: DongDong
Leading Artist: DongDong
Collaborating Artists: Guangyi Shen, Yiwen Zhang
Text:DongDong
Photo: Yiwen Zhang, Z-arts
Presented as part of Haphazard 2026, organised by Word of Warning @warnmcr in partnership with Z-arts @z.artsmcr