With UK libraries fast becoming an endangered species, Ant Hampton and Tim Etchells's piece – designed to be played out in the hushed surroundings of reading rooms without disturbing anyone – reminds that these are magic places that can transport you anywhere from a bombed Beirut street to a snow hole. Like Rotozaza's Etiquette, this is a piece of autoteatro in which the audience are also the performers following instructions issued via headphones.
Arrive at the library with a partner, and the two of you are issued with iPods and headphones, and shown to a table with small stack of books and a notepad. Soon, you are rifling through the books, sharing selected passages, staring at blank pages and conjuring images in your head that may, or may not, be exactly the same. The experience plays craftily on the whispered atmosphere of libraries: the intense absorption of those studying around you adds to the feeling of heightened awareness in which every sound is magnified, every movement has increased significance and all words dance with possibility. It feels as if there might be very good reasons why Bishopsgate keeps its books in glass cages, like precious wild animals.
Apart from the unexpected discovery that I find reading upside-down just as easy as the right way round, it is the peripherals here that make the experience most intriguing. There are some excellent surreal images, but it is when reading between the lines that the piece becomes most fully alive. Though you are directed to every word, there is a sense that we are all privately running amok in the libraries of our minds.
